Geocaching Australia

I’ve just found out about this but is could possibly revolutionise the use of coordinates to define a location on the earth’s surface.
Currently we need something like this to define a location.
S37 49.198 E144 59.010
In the new system a 3 metre square is defined by three words. Our location above is defined with
haven.accent.sugar
This is much more useable by the general public and easier to record and remember. It is available in a number of languages, and has built in error checking by ensuring similar sounding words give locations many kilometres away. It sounds as though it is already being built into Google Maps and other services, and is receiving wide acceptance.
A very interesting concept. You can read about it here https://what3words.com/

I found that one a while ago, I love the concept. I have the app on my phone and love finding the funniest set of three words I can find for a place.

That's kinda cool, but my initial thought was that because each address is so individual it gives no clues to its neighbouring addresses. For instance if you were given a street number and you're driving along the street looking for that number, you know that neighbouring houses order goes in one direction or the other. But this method gives no clue how near or far you are, but then I guess you'd be using a device to help you navigate rather than a street directory or your eyes.

Could make cache naming interesting....

It would be interesting to do calculations with them.

MavEtJu wrote:It would be interesting to do calculations with them.

Yes, but that's a bit like saying the same thing about street names.
It's not their purpose.

ziggiau wrote:That's kinda cool, but my initial thought was that because each address is so individual it gives no clues to its neighbouring addresses. For instance if you were given a street number and you're driving along the street looking for that number, you know that neighbouring houses order goes in one direction or the other. But this method gives no clue how near or far you are, but then I guess you'd be using a device to help you navigate rather than a street directory or your eyes..

As I understand it the beauty of it is, you would have it right. It's not like getting the wrong street number, there is built in error checking which would have you thousands of kms away if you had the wrong word, so you'd know at the source of the info and be able to get it corrected.

There's an API so Groundspeak could easily build this into geocaching.

gmj3191 wrote:As I understand it the beauty of it is, you would have it right. It's not like getting the wrong street number, there is built in error checking which would have you thousands of kms away if you had the wrong word, so you'd know at the source of the info and be able to get it corrected.

I've just searched up my place but it's covered by many 3m squares (I don't live in a shoebox), so I guess there must be some kind of standardisation to say which of those bunches of squares will be the actual address. I see the pros and cons here, but certainly an interesting solution.

They seem to acknowledge geocaching already (https://what3words.com/using-what3words ... ing-tools/).

gmj3191 wrote:There's an API so Groundspeak could easily build this into geocaching.

If this was to be built into the websites (all and sundry or apps) what benefit does it provide to have a 3 name word vs. a set of co-ords? i.e. What would you use the words for?

It seems to be of most use to places with poor addressing, their example being the Brazilian Favelas. I'm not sure how it is advantageous for places with existing well defined addressing.

ziggiau wrote:

gmj3191 wrote:As I understand it the beauty of it is, you would have it right. It's not like getting the wrong street number, there is built in error checking which would have you thousands of kms away if you had the wrong word, so you'd know at the source of the info and be able to get it corrected.

I've just searched up my place but it's covered by many 3m squares (I don't live in a shoebox), so I guess there must be some kind of standardisation to say which of those bunches of squares will be the actual address. I see the pros and cons here, but certainly an interesting solution.

They seem to acknowledge geocaching already (https://what3words.com/using-what3words ... ing-tools/).

My understanding was that you just pick one, near the front, that is easy to remember and use that.