Another really useful and important app that you should put on your smartphone is the Emergency plus app. It is a free app developed by Australia’s emergency services and their Government and industry partners.
The app uses GPS functionality built into smart phones to help a Triple Zero (000) caller provide critical location details required to mobilise emergency services.
When opened the app contains logos to tap on for calling triple zero (000), the SES and the Police. When you tap one of these logos the app comes up with a description of what to call the emergency service for. For example if you tap the SES logo it states "State Emergency Services for flood, storm and cyclone emergency help", and gives you the option to tap to Call or Cancel.
As well as providing your estimated street address, the app shows your latitude and longitude, and your location using What3words.
What3words is a really cool system that his divided the whole world into 3 metre by 3 metre squares, and assigned three words to each square. I took the screenshot above whilst I was at the southern exercise machine at Yallarwah Park. In this case the app thought I was at 125 Eastslope Way, NAC which wasn't entirely correct. It also gave the latitude of -32.66629o and longitude of 152.04087o. Emergency services can use this latitude and longitude to find exactly where you are. But it is easy to misquote the latitude and longitude when reading it out, especially since they are each five decimal places long.
A much easier way of giving your exact location is the what3words address - it is shown at the bottom of the screen and in this case it was fakes.mashes.dozing.
By advising the emergency service that this is where you are, they will be able to find you exactly. These three words are unique, and describe your location with a 3 metre accuracy. It would be much easier and quicker to quote these three words instead of reading out the latitude and longitude. If I told the emergency service that I was at fakes.mashes.dozing they would know exactly where I was, which was not at 125 Eastslope Way NAC.
Another example of how this would work well would be if you lived on a large property and had fallen down in your backyard - by calling the emergency service and telling them your what3words address, they would know exactly where you were and would be able to come and find you easily without having to check in the house first. It could also be very useful for an emergency whilst boating - the emergency service would know exactly where you were when you called them - at anchor in an out of the way cove, or somewhere in the middle of Port Stephens!
If you would like to know more about what3words and how it works, there is also a what3words app you can download for free and use. It has many uses for people who want to give locations for meeting others.
