Google India today announced that Google Maps users can now access their current location to find the Plus Codes address for their home. Plus Codes are free, open-sourced, digital addresses that provide simple and accurate addresses for any place on Earth, including for places that don’t have accurate formal addresses, said Google.
Google introduced Plus Codes in India back in 2018, and since its launch it has been adopted at scale by NGOs in India and governments as it serves the addressing needs of millions of people.
Instead of street and locality names, Plus Codes are based on latitude and longitude and are displayed as a short sequence of numbers and letters, providing accuracy right up to the doorstep. Plus Codes also ease the discovery of and navigation to businesses.
Plus Codes addresses can be accessed seamlessly, from getting food, medicines, or parcels delivered, sending a location to friends or family, without going through the hassle of sharing approximate addresses with landmarks, or voice instructions that may be ambiguous.
When saving a ‘Home’ location on Google Maps, users in India will see a new ‘Use your current location’ that uses their phone’s location to generate a Plus Code (if the location precision meets minimum thresholds,) which they can then use as their Home address.
There is also a new section at the top of the “Saved” tab to make it easier to retrieve, copy, and share these home addresses. The feature is currently available on Android only, but it will roll out for iOS devices soon.
Commenting on the launch, Amanda Bishop, Product Manager, Google Maps said:
In addition to community-led efforts, we are also committed to empowering users to directly use Plus Code addresses for their daily needs. We piloted this feature in India a month ago, and are thrilled to share that over 300,000 users in India have already found their home’s address using Plus Codes. We are looking forward to expanding to more types of places, and are actively looking for opportunities to partner with e-commerce, logistics, and delivery companies, to scale up the experience to more people across the world.