Google Maps on Thursday received an update for its users in India that allows them to save and share their home addresses with Plus Codes. The update will help users get accurate digital addresses of their homes that can be used for faster deliveries of food, medicine and parcels, without sharing waypoints or voice instructions. Addresses with Plus Codes can also be shared with people for easier navigation. Plus Codes are free and open source digital addresses intended to provide accurate location details.
Using the last update, you can now generate a Plus Code for your home address via Google Maps. The app will show a new Use your current location option when saving a House local that will use your phone’s location to generate a Plus Code. Once saved, the place of residence with the Plus Code generated can be shared directly from saved guide on Google Maps.
If you already have a location saved as your Home on Google Maps, you will see a Plus Code next to it for accurate details.
You can simply copy the Plus Code and paste it into your chat to provide accurate details of your home location to anyone who wants it. The alphanumeric code will not include any of your personal data such as your name and email ID. Your home address is also saved in your private Google Maps profile and is not available for public access as a nearby location in the app. Also, you can edit or remove your home address with Plus Code directly from Google Maps.
Google Maps initially launched the new experience for Android users. However, it will also be available for iOS users in the coming days.
In announcing the update, Google said that India’s first feature is designed to provide accurate home addresses through Google Maps.
Google said it initially tested the feature in India a month ago. More than 300,000 users in the country are already using it for their home addresses, the company said.
“We look forward to expanding to more types of places and are actively looking for opportunities to partner with e-commerce, logistics and delivery companies to extend the experience to more people around the world,” said Amanda Bishop, Product Manager, Google Maps, in a prepared statement.
In 2015, Google introduced Plus Codes as a solution for locating ‘hard to find’ places around the world. The technology was launched in India in March 2018.
Google Maps in 2020 introduced the ability to let users share their current location using Plus Codes by tapping the blue dot in the app.