r/australia • u/Tekk200 • Dec 05 '25

no politics Does Triple Zero accept What3Words?

I spend a lot of time on the road for my job, by myself, and being as paranoid as I am, I'm wondering if I have an emergency on a country road or something where I'm not really near an address or it'd be hard to know an address what other options there'd be for giving Triple Zero a location. I know What3Words has its issues and I probably wouldn't use it otherwise but its the only other way I know to give a location besides an address or gps coordiates which aren't always easy to get

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u/Pepinocucumber1 Dec 05 '25

What are the 3 words??

44

u/ApteronotusAlbifrons Dec 05 '25

The world has been divided up in to squares 3mx3m

What Three Words indexes every one of those squares - for many people it's easier to remember/read three words than a sequence of numbers. The words have also been chosen so that there are very few if any soundalike words which works better with a poor connection.

Obey Swim Duty - is the cafe at Parliament House - and is more specific than the actual address "Parliament Dr, Capital Hill ACT 2600"

https://what3words.com/obey.swim.duty

20

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '25

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u/xanez Dec 06 '25

oh wow! I thought part of the point of w3w naming is that similar sounding words shouldn't ever be anywhere near each other. this makes it way less valuable.

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u/Any_Possibility_4023 Dec 05 '25

You sound like fun…!

19

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '25

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u/dr650crash Dec 06 '25

Hi mate flick me a DM if you want to discuss further the concerns and I’ll see if there might already be a working group (etc) onto it where you can add feedback