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what3words accuracy


moonhunter
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Anyone else found what3words to just barely work at all? I think my phone’s GPS must be a bit crap or something.

My signal was actually incredible, internet worked probably 90% of the time, but my friends’ didn’t. Relied on calls and texts where I’d give the w3w which often directed them to the approximate right place (eg the right stage) but not much more specific to that. I was better just verbally describing where I was and we ended up just doing that.

I also had an issue where every time I refreshed the app it would show me a totally different w3w. It even did this for my tent. Is there something I could do to improve the accuracy? Am I just being stupid/using it wrong? Got a couple more fests this year and would be great to have it working for them!

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33 minutes ago, moonhunter said:

Anyone else found what3words to just barely work at all? I think my phone’s GPS must be a bit crap or something.

My signal was actually incredible, internet worked probably 90% of the time, but my friends’ didn’t. Relied on calls and texts where I’d give the w3w which often directed them to the approximate right place (eg the right stage) but not much more specific to that. I was better just verbally describing where I was and we ended up just doing that.

I also had an issue where every time I refreshed the app it would show me a totally different w3w. It even did this for my tent. Is there something I could do to improve the accuracy? Am I just being stupid/using it wrong? Got a couple more fests this year and would be great to have it working for them!

First of all I thought it wasn't working, but then I realised I hadn't pressed the 'your location' bit as soon as I did that it worked pretty much every time

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Just now, gigpusher said:

I couldn't get a phone signal so anything phone related was a no go for me. I'm on 3. I have always been on EE before. Is it always this bad for other networks or was it just this year?

Signal this year on O2 was abysmal, never been that bad before

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3 minutes ago, Levitz said:

Signal this year on O2 was abysmal, never been that bad before

Interesting I know it's EE who provide the service but I would have thought it should be for all festival goers and not just EE customers. Mostly I was actually quite happy to be internet free for a week but that's because I had the comfort of my husband having mostly a pretty good signal and he's with EE so we had some contact with the person looking after our dogs. If neither of us had a signal it could have been quite stressful. 

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2 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

there was just me and one other mate out of our group of 16 on o2 and it was basically like being off grid for both of us!

Yep, random spots at BBC introducing and JP were good, cue 138 new whatsapps.......

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9 minutes ago, Levitz said:

Yep, random spots at BBC introducing and JP were good, cue 138 new whatsapps.......

Yep same....at random points my phone would spring into life with texts from mates who were trying to meet up the previous night flooding through ...sigh...

Edited by gooner1990
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1 hour ago, stuartbert two hats said:

It always got me to where I needed to be.  Galaxy A52.

This does make me think if it’s a phone model thing. Mine is an iphone Xs. Had it a few years now and it’s definitely a lot slower / battery is worse / camera quality has suffered etc so wouldn’t be shocked if this got impacted too.

46 minutes ago, dizzymoo said:

I've noticed when testing it at home that it circles around a bit before settling on one location. Definitely more use when looking for larger objects like campervans, or one person in an empty landscape!

I’ve been testing it just now with wifi off and I can guess from the map what spot is right which it does land on from time to time but it can’t settle. Takes me as far as all the way up the next road. Definitely no help for trying to locate people in a crowd. And tried it with wifi on and it’s only marginally better.

45 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

I couldn't get a phone signal so anything phone related was a no go for me. I'm on 3. I have always been on EE before. Is it always this bad for other networks or was it just this year?

I was on EE and it was so good that I think I can definitely expect to have absolutely 0 signal whatsoever at the next festivals to bring back the balance. 😂 I’ve never had it as good as that. 

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4 minutes ago, moonhunter said:

I was on EE and it was so good that I think I can definitely expect to have absolutely 0 signal whatsoever at the next festivals to bring back the balance. 😂 I’ve never had it as good as that. 

Yep my husband was able to upload videos to instagram and I couldn't get a WhatsApp message. 

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My husband went to see mitski while I went to Macca. Sent him the what 3 words and a photo of the nearest flags and he found me with no problems (although I deliberately picked a less busy area so he'd be able to turn up late).

Did have to send all messages to him on WhatsApp and text, because it was hit & miss what would get through (he's on Vodafone, I had no problems on EE).

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23 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

Yep my husband was able to upload videos to instagram and I couldn't get a WhatsApp message. 

Yep...one of my friends was uploading instagram stories, facebook etc and I couldn't even get WhatApp messages (on o2)

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6 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

Yep...one of my friends was uploading instagram stories, facebook etc and I couldn't even get WhatApp messages (on o2)

Looks like at least my husband is stuck with EE so that we have some coverage at the festival. Only time I hated not having any coverage was when trying to meet up with my friend for Macca. She was there with her husband and 3.5 year old daughter. They put her to bed each night and one of them went out on their own to see a headliner. Wanted my friend to meet up with us and my husband tried sending her messages but she also had a shit reception so she ended up watching Macca on her own. 

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I used W3W a few times and it was accurate to within about 5 metres. I'm on an iPhone 13 Pro. Used it for the tent, car, and people, so got a fair bit of use! I'm sure I could have got it to be even more accurate if I waited for more GPS satellites to lock but I'm impatient.

Internet on EE was actually incredible! You could see a few masts they'd installed around the site and one of the big advantages of 5G, even more so than speed which is only a meh upgrade, is that each mast can handle many more connections than the old 3 and 4g ones, so I think that really paid off for them. EE was better on site than 3 is in London, which admittedly isn't saying much because 3 is basically unusable in London but that's my most recent comparison!

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