what3words: Navigation & Maps

Review by eFreeware

Most of us describe places with street addresses, and most of the time that works. It stops working when the place has no address at all: a trailhead, a delivery entrance at the back of a building, a picnic spot in a large park, the exact door a friend should knock on. Postcodes cover a cluster of buildings, and latitude and longitude coordinates are accurate but awkward to say out loud or type into a message.

what3words is built around that gap. The developer has divided the world into 10ft squares and given each one a fixed combination of three words, so any spot can be named, shared and found without a street address. The app comes from what3words itself, is free to download, and has been on Android since June 2013, with more than 10 million installs behind it.

How three-word addresses work in daily use

The core idea is simple to explain and, by all appearances, simple to use. You look up the square you are standing in or the square you want to reach, and the app hands you three words. Send those words to someone else, and they can open the same spot on their own phone. No reading out coordinates, no describing which side of the building you mean.

That makes the app a sharing tool as much as a map. The developer lists a wide range of situations where it helps: telling emergency services where you are when the location is hard to describe or the address on record is wrong, giving a breakdown service your exact position, arranging a meetup, or marking a delivery entrance. The same three words can be saved for later, so a viewpoint, a waterfall or a proposal spot stays findable.

Businesses use it too. Hotels and companies put their what3words address on booking confirmations and contact pages, which is useful for guests trying to find the right gate or entrance rather than the general area. Travelers dealing with addresses that do not quite match reality are a natural audience here.

Offline lookup and compass guidance

Two features stand out for anyone heading away from reliable signal. The app can find your current what3words address without a connection, and Compass mode gives you a direction to follow when you are navigating offline. For a camping trip, a hike or a rural delivery, that combination covers the part of the journey where a map app often gives up.

It points you toward the destination, which is the sensible approach for the kind of places this app is designed around. If you are walking somewhere unfamiliar, that is enough to keep you oriented.

Maps, lists and the wider ecosystem

You can pair it with the map app you already use, such as Google Maps or Apple Maps, so the three-word address serves as the destination and the routing stays with that app. That keeps the learning curve short: you are adding one habit, not switching platforms.

Saved locations can be organized into lists, which matters once you have more than a handful of spots. The developer also mentions AutoSuggest, which offers suggestions as you type, and an option to attach a what3words address to a photo. There is Wear OS support for smartwatch navigation, and the app is available in more than 50 languages.

The most recent update adds Android Auto, so the address system can be used from a connected vehicle. For anyone who spends a lot of the day driving between imprecise locations, that is a meaningful addition rather than a cosmetic one.

What it needs from you, and the trade-offs

It gives you a precise reference point and a compass bearing; the routing itself comes from the map app you pair it with.

The developer notes that the format is accepted by more than 4,800 9-1-1 emergency communications centers across the United States, which is a strong argument in an emergency, but the everyday value depends on the people you are coordinating with.

The app is free and carries no ads, though it does offer in-app purchases. The current rating sits at 3.2 from more than 46,000 ratings, which is worth weighing if you are deciding whether the experience will feel polished. The system is more precise than a street address and easier to pass on than coordinates, which holds up for the situations it targets.

Who gets real use out of it

The people who benefit most are those whose work or hobbies regularly take them to places without a usable address. Delivery drivers looking for the correct entrance, event organizers coordinating a meeting point in a large open space, hikers and campers marking a spot they want to return to, and property hosts helping guests find the right door all fit the pattern.

It is also a sensible thing to have installed before you need it. Emergencies in unfamiliar or remote areas are exactly where a street address fails, and having a precise reference ready takes no effort once the app is on your phone.

For someone whose destinations are all conventional buildings with clear addresses and working maps, the appeal is thinner. The app is a specialist tool, and its value lies in doing one narrow job very well rather than covering everything a general map app does.

A precise tool for imprecise places

what3words solves a real problem cleanly: naming a spot that has no name. The three-word system is easy to explain to someone else, works offline for finding your current address, and slots into the map apps you already have rather than asking you to abandon them. The Android Auto addition and Wear OS support show the developer is still extending where the addresses can be used.

It is a companion to your navigation app, not a replacement, and its usefulness depends on the other person accepting a three-word address.

If you regularly need to send or receive an exact location, this is worth having on your phone. If your destinations all have proper addresses and your map app already gets you there, you can leave it for the day that changes.

What's new

what3words is now available for Android Auto. Connect your phone to your vehicle to get started.