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Show HN: We built the simplest Online Unit Converter for everyday use

8 points by rpcom 2y ago

Features: 200+ unit converters in Area, Length, Mass, Speed, Temperature, and Time categories; Precision: up to 28 decimal places; Conversion formulas with examples; Neat UI with light/dark theme. Enjoy using it.

abishekvenkat 2y ago
Looks nice and useful! One minor feedback would be - you could move the "Browse related converters" section to the right panel which is empty now.
- rpcom 2y ago
  Makes sense - to fill UI voids. Thank you for the feedback.
  - rootsu 2y ago
    Also, you can actually start converting as soon as someone types and not have the user to perform an additional action of clicking "Convert"
    - rpcom 2y ago
      Our service uses backend to perform high-precision calculations not available through Javascript. That’s why it was an intentional decision in order to avoid any delays between entering the text and backend response. However, we might change our decision after additional performance testing.
milliams 2y ago
This website uses cookies Show all partners (1496) Why should a site like this possibly need to be potentially sharing data with one and a half thousand other entities?
- rpcom 2y ago
  The website shares cookies with Google over Google Analytics only if cookies are accepted via consent banner, otherwise the website browsing is completely anonymous. Regarding 1496 partners, these entities will not get any information if there is no services associated with them plugged-in to our website (and there is no such in our case). They are just registered partners of Cookie Consent Provider that we use on our website.
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    Then get rid of it. That's scarily over-broad.
janalsncm 2y ago
Here is my feedback: 1. You don’t need an internet connection for simple unit conversion. 2. You don’t need to share data with 1400+ spy tech organizations. You don’t need cookies at all. It’s a stateless calculator.
- rpcom 2y ago
  We use high-precision calculations up to 28 decimal digits that cannot be provided by numeric types available in Javascript. That’s why we do our calculations on the backend.
  - eitally 2y ago
    Which is cool and all, but totally unnecessary for approximately 100% of users. You should at least provide an option to do everything in js. Also, for ux reasons, I'd love this as a browser extension. Cloudy Calculator can do a lot of it but was recently deprecated as a result of the Manifest v2->v3 requirement from Google.
    - rpcom 2y ago
      When a user converts, for example, 0.0001 millimeters to miles, most of converters out there will fail to provide the correct result due to precision loss. I know, it’s rare case, but we want to ensure that we can handle all cases without exception.
      - kstrauser 2y ago
        Your site doesn't work by that standard. English<=>metric distance eventually comes down to how accurately you can represent 1/127 (because 1in==25.4mm). 1/127 repeats after 42 digits and you only support 28. You can't give exact answers without representing everything as fractions, even for the easy ones like mm to miles. With that being true, anything more than JavaScript's own precision is probably unhelpful. The kind of person solving problems where they'd need to convert between miles and mm would rewrite the constant as "1mi = 1,609,344mm". No one in the real world is adding up 0.0001mm intervals until they get to a mile, so you're solving for a problem that doesn't actually exist.
ishtanbul 2y ago
the color scheme is low contrast. i would recommend black and white instead
- rpcom 2y ago
  This is important suggestion that we should consider for better usability. Thanks.
ordu 2y ago
I'm generally content with ddg converter, the only its issue it is hard to convert pounds into a metric units, because ddg stubbornly believes that the pound is a currency. It will happily convert pounds into dollars, but not into kilograms.
- gtfiorentino 2y ago
  Hi - do you have an example query showing this issue? I just tried "45 lb to kg" on DuckDuckGo and it's working as I would expect (45 Pounds = 20.41166 Kilograms).
  - ordu 2y ago
    I would use "45 pounds", it really doesn't matter for me will ddg convert them into grams or kilograms or metric tons, I can read any of them. But I tried "45 lb", and it works as the pound. I hadn't thought that "lb" is the pound. I mean I saw this abbreviation, and probably converted it into metric units, but didn't notice that "lb" == "pound". Seems like a crazy way to abbreviate.
m3kw9 2y ago
We are near “Moores law” limit for how simple a unit converter can get
unsnap_biceps 2y ago
The red under "Free Online" looks weird to my eyes, like it was half crossed out with a red highlighter. The helpful descriptions under the conversion doesn't seem to switch to the ones you have selected. I expected when I switched the time from minutes to years, the box would have defined years.
- rpcom 2y ago
  Thank you for the feedback. Usually users search a specific unit conversion, such as “convert meters to feet”. They will be redirected by a search engine to a dedicated page with detailed units descriptions down below the category page, example https://www.betaconvert.com/length/meters/feet https://www.betaconvert.com/length/meters/feet , do their conversion and leave. For the case when a user begins navigation from top-bottom, we will consider to load a proper unit description on unit change as you have suggested.
OnlyMortal 2y ago
My personal favourite unit converter is here: https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-conver...
stemlord 2y ago
I often need a quick and easy conversion tool for mapping a val from one range to another Also have a hard time finding good resolution/aspect ratio calculators Finally the most fraught online calculator tooling I know of is projector throw distance and part specs calculators/visualizers
fragmede 2y ago
Has the same problem with time as I see elsewhere. I don't don't want to convert a billion seconds to number of hours and then days and then weeks and months and then years. I want to translate that to a human readable years/months/days/hours/minutes/seconds in one click.
honkeymagoo 2y ago
I find natural language much easier, it's one single interface-- I just use raycast. If I type "20ft" it defaults showing in meters, so I don't even have to type anything extra, it's great

8 points by rpcom 2y ago

abishekvenkat 2y ago

Looks nice and useful! One minor feedback would be - you could move the "Browse related converters" section to the right panel which is empty now.

rpcom 2y ago
Makes sense - to fill UI voids. Thank you for the feedback.
- rootsu 2y ago
  Also, you can actually start converting as soon as someone types and not have the user to perform an additional action of clicking "Convert"
  - rpcom 2y ago
    Our service uses backend to perform high-precision calculations not available through Javascript. That’s why it was an intentional decision in order to avoid any delays between entering the text and backend response. However, we might change our decision after additional performance testing.

milliams 2y ago

This website uses cookies Show all partners (1496) Why should a site like this possibly need to be potentially sharing data with one and a half thousand other entities?

rpcom 2y ago
The website shares cookies with Google over Google Analytics only if cookies are accepted via consent banner, otherwise the website browsing is completely anonymous. Regarding 1496 partners, these entities will not get any information if there is no services associated with them plugged-in to our website (and there is no such in our case). They are just registered partners of Cookie Consent Provider that we use on our website.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  Then get rid of it. That's scarily over-broad.

janalsncm 2y ago

Here is my feedback: 1. You don’t need an internet connection for simple unit conversion. 2. You don’t need to share data with 1400+ spy tech organizations. You don’t need cookies at all. It’s a stateless calculator.

rpcom 2y ago
We use high-precision calculations up to 28 decimal digits that cannot be provided by numeric types available in Javascript. That’s why we do our calculations on the backend.
- eitally 2y ago
  Which is cool and all, but totally unnecessary for approximately 100% of users. You should at least provide an option to do everything in js. Also, for ux reasons, I'd love this as a browser extension. Cloudy Calculator can do a lot of it but was recently deprecated as a result of the Manifest v2->v3 requirement from Google.
  - rpcom 2y ago
    When a user converts, for example, 0.0001 millimeters to miles, most of converters out there will fail to provide the correct result due to precision loss. I know, it’s rare case, but we want to ensure that we can handle all cases without exception.
    - kstrauser 2y ago
      Your site doesn't work by that standard. English<=>metric distance eventually comes down to how accurately you can represent 1/127 (because 1in==25.4mm). 1/127 repeats after 42 digits and you only support 28. You can't give exact answers without representing everything as fractions, even for the easy ones like mm to miles. With that being true, anything more than JavaScript's own precision is probably unhelpful. The kind of person solving problems where they'd need to convert between miles and mm would rewrite the constant as "1mi = 1,609,344mm". No one in the real world is adding up 0.0001mm intervals until they get to a mile, so you're solving for a problem that doesn't actually exist.

ishtanbul 2y ago

the color scheme is low contrast. i would recommend black and white instead

rpcom 2y ago
This is important suggestion that we should consider for better usability. Thanks.

ordu 2y ago

I'm generally content with ddg converter, the only its issue it is hard to convert pounds into a metric units, because ddg stubbornly believes that the pound is a currency. It will happily convert pounds into dollars, but not into kilograms.

gtfiorentino 2y ago
Hi - do you have an example query showing this issue? I just tried "45 lb to kg" on DuckDuckGo and it's working as I would expect (45 Pounds = 20.41166 Kilograms).
- ordu 2y ago
  I would use "45 pounds", it really doesn't matter for me will ddg convert them into grams or kilograms or metric tons, I can read any of them. But I tried "45 lb", and it works as the pound. I hadn't thought that "lb" is the pound. I mean I saw this abbreviation, and probably converted it into metric units, but didn't notice that "lb" == "pound". Seems like a crazy way to abbreviate.

m3kw9 2y ago

We are near “Moores law” limit for how simple a unit converter can get

unsnap_biceps 2y ago

The red under "Free Online" looks weird to my eyes, like it was half crossed out with a red highlighter. The helpful descriptions under the conversion doesn't seem to switch to the ones you have selected. I expected when I switched the time from minutes to years, the box would have defined years.

rpcom 2y ago
Thank you for the feedback. Usually users search a specific unit conversion, such as “convert meters to feet”. They will be redirected by a search engine to a dedicated page with detailed units descriptions down below the category page, example https://www.betaconvert.com/length/meters/feet https://www.betaconvert.com/length/meters/feet , do their conversion and leave. For the case when a user begins navigation from top-bottom, we will consider to load a proper unit description on unit change as you have suggested.

OnlyMortal 2y ago

My personal favourite unit converter is here: https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-conver...

stemlord 2y ago

I often need a quick and easy conversion tool for mapping a val from one range to another Also have a hard time finding good resolution/aspect ratio calculators Finally the most fraught online calculator tooling I know of is projector throw distance and part specs calculators/visualizers

fragmede 2y ago

Has the same problem with time as I see elsewhere. I don't don't want to convert a billion seconds to number of hours and then days and then weeks and months and then years. I want to translate that to a human readable years/months/days/hours/minutes/seconds in one click.

honkeymagoo 2y ago

I find natural language much easier, it's one single interface-- I just use raycast. If I type "20ft" it defaults showing in meters, so I don't even have to type anything extra, it's great