In my old app, Pool Doctor, I sometimes used product names (for example, “Bioguard BalancePack 200”) instead of chemical names (“Sodium Carbonate” or “soda ash”).
This was useful because some brands had different concentrations of active ingredients, and I could maintain a master list.
However, as I soon learned, there are a lot of chemicals, and I really don’t want to be in the business of endorsing any specific brands.
In pooldash, I’m sticking to chemical names for now, and I made it really easy to adjust concentration on the fly (and the app remembers those adjustments). However, I’m a little bit worried that this is a regression in terms of the poolside experience. It’s easier to see “add 6 oz of BalancePack 200” than it is to see “add 6 oz of Sodium Carbonate”, and then have to read the fine-print on all the chemicals to remember which one is the soda-ash.
I’ve considered letting people create their own “alias” for each chemical – for instance, you could automatically sub out all “sodium carbonate” with “BalancePack 200”, and even include a concentration in that.
Maaaaybe this could eventually be a sort-of crowdsourced master list, but I’m probably not going to take it that far.
I’m open to feedback at this stage – what do y’all think?
