Off-road, off-grid locations more easily found
DETROIT–TU-Automotive— TomTom (TOM2) and what3words today announced that they will collaborate to bring what3words addressing to TomTom’s customers globally.
“Whether you’re trying to find an address in the centre of Turin, or on the streets of Tuvalu, TomTom wants to get you there quickly and efficiently. Our collaboration with what3words demonstrates our commitment to embracing new addressing technology that is easy-to-use and integrates simply into our navigation offering.”
what3words is a simple way to talk about location. The world is divided into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and each square is assigned a unique three-word address. As such, what3words is the perfect complement to TomTom’s existing maps, allowing people to accurately find any location and share it more quickly, easily and with less ambiguity than any other system. The 3 word address for TomTom’s head office, for example, can be found at ///pancake.climbing.beaker. The easy-to-use addressing system works well in areas where traditional maps and addressing don’t – for example, off-road locations, and countries without standardized addressing systems such as India and the Middle East.
Antoine Saucier, Managing Director, TomTom Automotive, said: “Whether you’re trying to find an address in the centre of Turin, or on the streets of Tuvalu, TomTom wants to get you there quickly and efficiently. Our collaboration with what3words demonstrates our commitment to embracing new addressing technology that is easy-to-use and integrates simply into our navigation offering.”
Chris Sheldrick, CEO and co-founder of what3words adds, “We are delighted to partner with TomTom, and bring the benefits of more accurate addressing to their customers. By using what3words, drivers are able to navigate to any precise location – as specific as a side door, gate or parking spot. Equally, destinations that previously have been unaddressed now have a simple, reliable and easy to remember 3 word address.”
what3words addressing will roll-out to TomTom Consumer and Automotive customers in the second half of 2018.
About TomTom
TomTom created the easy-to-use navigation device, one of the most influential inventions of all time. Since then, we have grown from a start-up, into a global technology company. We design and develop innovative navigation products, software and services, that power hundreds of millions of applications across the globe. This includes industry-leading location-based and mapmaking technologies, embedded automotive navigation solutions; portable navigation devices and apps, and the most advanced telematics fleet management and connected car services.
Combining our own R&D expertise with business and technology partnerships, we continue to shape the future, leading the way with autonomous driving, smart mobility and smarter cities. Headquartered in Amsterdam with offices in 37 countries, we offer advanced digital maps that cover 142 countries, and our hyper-detailed and real-time TomTom Traffic information service reaches more than five billion people in 69 countries. www.tomtom.com
About what3words
Find your 3 word address here
Co-founded in London in 2013 by Chris Sheldrick, what3words is the simplest way to talk about location. The system covers the entire world, never needs updating, and works offline. A 3 word address is a human-friendly way to share very precise locations with other people, or to input them into platforms and machines such as autonomous cars or e-commerce checkouts. It is optimised for voice input and contains built-in error prevention to immediately identify and correct input mistakes.
The free what3words app, available for iOS and Android, and the online map enable people to find, share and navigate to 3 word addresses in 26 languages to date. A 3 word addresses in one language can be switched instantly into any other supported language, and even looked up in one language and shared in another. what3words can be easily integrated by businesses, governments and NGOs into apps, platforms or websites, with just a few lines of code, and products are available for free or for a nominal fee for qualifying NGOs.