Show HN: An app for your older relatives, helping them find the right cables (opens in new tab)

This is awesome! My only suggestion would be that for selections that are incompatible, you should offer an explanation about why they are incompatible. Just having the options greyed out and disabled is really frustrating for non-technical users.

For example: "I want to connect my tablet to the TV". As a techie, I know this is possible, but the solution is probably too complicated. It might be helpful to let the user make this choice, but then say "You can't do this with a cable". Even for stupid ones like "I want to connect my Printer to the TV", just say "This is not possible, you can't connect X to Y".

Found a problem when trying to go for USB-C on Android.

I chose Mobile Phone to computer. It asked if I had an iPhone. I said no. It asked if I had an Android. I said yes. It showed me a picture of a Micro USB port and asked if the connection looked like that. I said no. Then it showed me a picture of an older iPhone with a 30pin connector and asked if I had that.

Awesome and clever idea! But, uh, marketing....

Within IT, we know what a dongle is. Outside IT, it sounds like it might mean dildo or dong or something equally penilesque.

Combine that with "daddy", and, well, we might get it as a joke, but your churchgoing grandma might not.

This service is not for IT people, so it cannot assume IT culture....

Good idea, but I noticed some issues:

IMHO it would be useful if at least the result pages had permalinks so you could copy and share them.

I think the adapter suggested for "laptop with VGA" to "TV with HDMI" does not work that way around, which is exactly the kind of mistake this site should help to avoid.

As others have noticed, (m)DP is fairly important and missing.

given the watermark, you are probably not allowed to use this image on your site in this way https://www.dongledaddy.com/images/tv/hdmi.jpg

This is one of the few blatant affiliate plays that I'm 100% ok with. This provides a very useful service, I don't care at all that you have your amazon links there. Very very well done!

Actually a pretty clever, and useful app. Definitely not only for "older relatives". People in my office, in their 20/30/40's, can't even handle the basics. That name though :D

You're missing a cable I had to buy recently for my father-in-law: Laptop to monitor: mini display port to DVI (specifically DVI without analog pins or it wouldn't fit into the plug on the monitor).

It's worth pointing out that the results might be hidden if you've got an adblocker enabled. Took me a second after the result appeared to figure out why there wasn't any product link like other comments were mentioning.

Neat idea though. Almost makes me wish I had some tech illiterate people in my life so this could save me tech support.

Also, small suggestion: "TV" could reasonably be named "TV/Monitor/Projector".

There is no way I am showing my grandfather this. He'll surely do it wrong and blame me. Even when I do all the work for him, he gets confused, tells me I did it wrong, redoes it himself, and then blames me when it doesn't work...

Last time I tried to help him, we argued for an hour about the difference between an HDMI cable and a high-speed HDMI cable...

My clients, on the other hand, will love this tool.

"Your older relatives," really? Did I miss the memo about how I'm supposed to become instantly stupid and lazy just because you happened to come along and be born? (Late?)

I know I know, "people whose purchasing of electronic junk surpasses their ability/willingness to use Wikipedia" just isn't catchy.

Cool site. I noticed it doesn't know about phones that have USB-C chargers.

edit: also DisplayPort for connecting to laptops

"For Christ's sake Billy, I just want to connect the CueCat to my iPAQ... Where's my soldering iron? And hand me those reading glasses."

> "If your phone is made by Samsung, HTC, Sony, Motorola, LG, Nexus, Nokia or Google it's definitely an Android phone. If you have an Apple iPhone, it's definitely not an Android"

Just a heads up, my Nokia running WP is definitely not an Android phone.

I dare you to add a "Live Chat" or "Live Video Help" button. :)

Charge by the minute and see how long your patience lasts.

You know where this could become really valuable would be in helping people figure out which USB Type-C cable they need. Because of the proliferation of Type-C alternate modes (USB/HDMI/Displayport/Thunderbolt) and power levels, it'll will become common to use a cable that fits mechanically but doesn't function. I predict significant unhappiness!

Older people often have older hardware since they don't feel the need to change what works. My first search for a common older printer connector (USB AB) didn't work:

http://www.notebookreview.com/feature/what-printer-cables-do...

That's a rather unfortunate name. Or fortunate, if you're targeting certain audiences.

The ageism in this post is incredible. I speak as someone who is the "older relative" to a lot of people, and as someone who provides tech support to those same people. Characterizing older relatives as people who need help with cables is as ridiculous as characterizing millenials as "digital natives". My generation has been cabling shit together for decades, from stereos to VCR's to DVD's to quadraphonic sound systems to DVR's. If anything, cabling has gotten simpler these days. HDMI and USB cover a multitude of sins. Curb your ageism, please!

As many have mentioned, this is missing some key connectors (USB C, DP, etc). I wanted to launch with an initial subset of connections just to get going. Also I found USB C hard to distinguish in a photo compared to Micro USB. But I will put it in soon, for sure.

Technology wise this app uses two things I really want to recommend. Netlify for the static hosting with automatic SSL provision (and they have awesome GitHub integratiOn). And Preact, which is the front end framework in use here. This is the same API as React but bundles down to 3kb which is really cool.

The question section is great, with lots of helpful picture, but then the answer is just text - how about some pictures there too? If i tell my mum she needs a USB 2.0 A-Male to B-Male, that might help her order a cable from amazon but it doesn't help her find what she's looking for in the shoebox full of cables under the computer desk.

Back in college I made an application similar to this: http://mymanual.herokuapp.com/ (sorry if its slow or broken, unmaintained for ~3 years).

I had to do an input for each device and tag the ports so the logic in the application can create custom setup guides.

This is really nice. If you are looking to expand, I would like to see more audio equipment included, such as synthesizers, mixers, and computer audio interfaces. I've recently been struggling somewhat with the difference between mono, balanced mono, and stereo connections as I try to set up a small home studio.

TV is greyed out when I want to connect from a mobile phone. We do this all the time with our Lightning to HDMI adaptor to show family videos to grandparents. Also, older relatives have asked for this capability specifically, since they are mostly phone-only (iPhone in our case), but have HDTVs.

For Computer => Printer it only proposes a USB cable, but many still-working printers require an LPT2 cable.

I would be nice to have links to the products.

Also the name is kind of weird :/, it looks like a porno site name.

If my computer only has a HDMI and my monitor doesn't have a HDMI then it doesn't know what cable I need (hint: check for dvi-d)

Great idea, but many common connection options are missing. Connecting TV with HDMI to computer asks only about full size HDMI and VGA and then gives up. No DVI, no display port, nothing else.

I like it and the name is a nice combination of memorable and provocative.

Should add a Phone => Computer guide though would be more specific to the model type (ex: may need a Lightning to HDMI adapter).

As an IT guy with a computer science degree who just hasn't found it worth it to keep up with consumer technology, I also find this helpful.

My nexus 5x has a USB type C connector. So I need USB-A to USB-C cable to connect Nexus 5x to PC. The site could not find this combination

Didn't see the affiliate links until I turned off Adblock. Well, the target audience is less likely to be Adblock users.

Interesting that this doesn't tell you how to connect the newest iPhone to the newest Macbook Pro

Love the idea, you can may be add YouTube link witg the result to show how to connect the two devices.

cool idea!

Note the first thing I tried (connecting a laptop with DVI, say, an old macbook) to a TV told me it didn't know what cable to use, I would've expected it to show me a DVI->hdmi cable

Good work Jonny :-) I'm proud of you!

No option for phones using usb c

FYI, ur FB share isnt set up