We have launched a website that allows anyone to lookup geohash regions on a map and convert from latitude and longitude.
A geohash is a string or integer representation of a rectangular region on the earth. We like geohashes because they work like hierarchical data structures - the more characters that are added to the string, to more refined the location and smaller the bounding box.
Geohash c3 - 2 characters of precision - specifies a region that covers both the cities of Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta, Canada. It is a large region, spanning a few hundred kilometers in all directions.
If we add characters to region c3, we generate a smaller region within the bounding c3 region. We now know that any IoT location that begins with c3 is related to each other - they are located within the c3 bounding box.
Region c3nf - 4 characters of precision - is a much smaller region and covers most of the city of Calgary. Each character of precision reduces the size of the bounding box by a factor of 32.
Go ahead, try it!
We like to use geohashes to tag IoT data. It is more concise than latitude, longitude pairs and offers the hierarchical relationship that speeds up relational searches and analysis.
The integer form of the geohash is particularly useful in finding locations that are "closest" to one another. For example, we can find out where an IoT device's nearest gateway might be, or nearest complimentary data sensor to correlate captured data better during analysis.
P.S. This geohash website itself is not hosted in a way you might expect! You can also find it here (version 1.2.0):