As the adage goes, the more things change, the more they remain the same. In the foreseeable future, Google Maps is likely to be your go-to navigation app. Chris Sheldrick, who is the co-founder and CEO of navigation platform What3words, isn’t attempting to change that. In fact, he wants to refine the entire experience, irrespective of which navigation app you use. Or the messaging app you use to share the location. Just, make it more accurate.
It is not a traditional GPS system, as we have interfaced with, thus far. The addresses aren’t as you see street addresses, also called postal addresses, in apps such as Google Maps and Apple Maps. It is easy to confuse what3words as a Google Maps alternative. It doesn’t intend to be one.
“It is more like an address system. If I’m the person who lives in this house here, this road may not even have a name,” Sheldrick tells us, pointing to a row of houses on a map, with a road that’s unmarked. “I want to say that this is my front door. The GPS technology is taken care of by the phone. What I’ve basically given this place here is a name and we call that an address,” he says.
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That is, 57 trillion three-meter squares, at a time. On earth, all landmass is covered, including the north pole and the south pole. And oceans too, Sheldrick confirms.
Any location a user pins, gets earmarked into a square that is 3 meters x 3 meters. That is how what3words envisions all of the earth’s surface. Each of these squares is given a unique address, made of three words. They’re randomly assigned combinations at first, but once earmarked for a grid, they can never be swapped with another grid. Sheldrick tells us there are safeguards in place within the system to ensure no such error happens.
For instance, the what3words office on Alfred Road in London, is addressed as ///vines.supporter.enhancement. Our Hindustan Times office in New Delhi is ///candidate.watch.musician. As a user, you may not necessarily have to remember the three-word addresses, though you always have the option to. These are a layer which will make navigation more accurate, once these location pins are opened in Google Maps or any other navigation app.
While what3words is available on the web browser as well as smartphone apps for Android phones and the Apple iPhone, Sheldrick hopes to reach a level of integration with third party apps, that’ll make their own apps redundant. On the maps, there is the option to switch to a satellite view on the app, to have a better view of the location you are going to, and what’s nearby.
The what3words system presently supports 55 languages globally, and 12 Indian languages. We asked Sheldrick if the translations of the addresses between languages is direct, or there is some modification to factor in actual words and context.
Can a user get confused and make a mistake? What3words have a fail-safe integrated here too, which shows the general location of what they’ve searched for, and any similar search results – these include the city and country details.
Sheldrick illustrates this with a live search on the app.
So ///toffee.branched.pyramid is shown here in Hinxworth Hertfordshire, while ///toffee.branch.pyramid is in Nuevo Leon in Mexico while ///toffee.branch.pyramids is in South Australia. As I’m typing, it should be very easy to me and even if I make a spelling mistake, the end of the word is still picks up what I want,” he says.
More than one can imagine at first, this system is quite intuitive for the user.
We asked Sheldrick is he is worried about users perceiving there’s a learning curve involved. After all, the utility only really comes through if the person sending as well as the person receiving the what3words addresses, both use the same platforms.
“We’ve done that in the UK, they generally know what what3words is like. If you went to a restaurant, you would probably just see what three words address on there. It’s just a part of normal society,” says Sheldrick.
He is right. The vehicle that took us to ///vines.supporter.enhancement through London, was using the what3words address system in-car for navigation. The UK Government too is implementing this system for the 911 services, for better accuracy for police, fire service and ambulance.
“Once you partner with the brands and you get the public engaged. It’s a pretty viable product,” he says.
That’s a crucial piece of the puzzle for what3words. The company already has partnerships in place in India, with Tata Motors and Mahindra Auto. For the former, the Altroz hatchback and Nexon SUVs already have the what3words navigation integrated within the in-car entertainment systems. Mahindra’s newest generation Scorpio-N SUV also gets the what3words navigation, additionally with Amazon Alexa bolted on for voice search.
Globally, the Mercedes Benz and ford cars also include what3words addressing system within the navigation functionality, with voice search. They have partnerships in place, with Jaguar Land Rover, Mitsubishi, TVS Motors, Here maps, TomTom and Amazon’s Alexa too.
The company is taking an aggressive approach in the enterprise space too. It has been adopted by logistics platforms BlueDart and DTDC in India.
According to what3words, logistics giant Aramex saw a 40% increase in efficiency when they integrated their address system to operations in the Middle East. Domino’s Pizza is also using the system in many countries. In some regions, drone delivery companies Hylio and DXC Technology are using what3words addresses to help customers specify precise drop-off locations. The United Nations too has adopted the technology, for quicker and more accurate disaster response and relief.
Additionally, what3words is working with many e-commerce platforms globally to integrate the what3words system during the order checkout process, which processes the delivery address into a three-word address, which can then be shared with the delivery partner.
Is there a chance of the system getting confused, if the phone what3words is being used on, has spotty GPS coverage? None, as it turns out. The what3words app can work completely offline. “Once you download the app, you have all of the world’s 57,000,000,000,00 three meter and three-word addresses on your phone,” he says.
While what3words has successfully placed a 57-trillion strong grid of 3 meters x 3 meters squares on earth, we asked Sheldrick about what happens if a user is looking for multiple levels of floors. As of now, the grid covers the ground-level, so to say.
That is the next frontier, which they are already thinking about. “In the future, we could allow an optional extra number, let’s say for the height. But today it’s a bit like latitude and longitude,” Sheldrick tells us. This, once it happens, will make what3words address pins very relevant indoors too.
Apart from the UK, some of the biggest markets for what3words are Germany, India, Japan, Korea and Vietnam.
“We would like to integrate with the big mapping platforms like Apple Maps, Google Maps and all of the others,” says Sheldrick, one eye on the future. He points out that right now, if you are to receive a location pin on WhatsApp for instance, you cannot transfer that to the navigation system on your car.
“The point about what3words is it gives you something cross platform that you can use with absolutely anything, as long as the product uses the what3words platform,” says Sheldrick, with hope.
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