DABA Match

What it does

You tell DABA Match what you own, across seven tabs: power tools and batteries, cameras, printers, PC parts & electronics (PC parts, phones, gaming accessories), appliances (fridge filters, coffee pods, vacuum bags and filters, and home & personal care items), bikes and smart home — plus an eighth, cars, for vehicle parts. From then on, when you open a product page at a supported retailer, it tells you whether that product works with what you already have.

Compatibility is decided by the one axis that actually settles it, and nothing else — never by brand name, never by a guess. Which axis that is depends on the category:

A Craftsman V60 mower does not take Craftsman V20 batteries, and DABA Match will say so — brand alone never decides it. There is no AI in the decision, no scoring, and no “probably”.

Installing

Until the Chrome Web Store listing is live, it installs as an unpacked extension.

1. Build it

   In the daba-match folder, run npm install then npm run build. This creates a dist folder.

2. Open Chrome’s extensions page

   Go to chrome://extensions and switch on Developer mode in the top right.

3. Load it

   Click Load unpacked and select the dist folder. The baobab appears in your toolbar.

Filling your garage

Click the baobab in the toolbar to open My Garage. Across the top are six tabs — Power tools, Cameras, Printers, PC parts, Appliances, and Bikes — plus Cars. Appliances covers fridge filters, coffee pods, vacuum bags and filters, and home & personal care items together, sorted by which kind of thing you add. Each tab is its own list: a drill you add on Power tools never shows up on Cameras. An empty tab means every verdict on it will be “can’t verify” — there is nothing to compare against yet.

Set your region first

Your region is read from the browser automatically and filters search to products actually sold in your market. It changes what you can find, not what the verdicts say.

Three ways to add something

Renaming

The ✎ button gives an item your own name — “Dad’s drill”, “ute kit”. Clear the field to go back to the catalog name. Renaming is display only: a nickname cannot make an M12 battery fit an M18 tool.

Cars are different

Every other tab matches on a platform — a battery, a mount, a cartridge, a socket. Cars match on the vehicle itself: year, make and model. Add a car with the same form as everything else, and DABA Match checks a listing’s named fitment against it.

Series and engine are optional — most owners don’t know either offhand. Adding the engine (for example 2.4L petrol) lets DABA Match rule out a part built for a different engine in the same model; without it, an engine-specific listing gets a hedge instead of a flat no.

Reading the panel

On a product page, a slim tab appears at the right edge of the screen. It opens itself as soon as it has identified the product. Click the tab to open it by hand; click ─ to put it back, or ✕ to dismiss it for this page.

Both are per-page and neither is remembered. A new product is a new question.

Identified by platform, not by model

Often the panel says it recognised the platform rather than the exact product. That is not a weaker answer. Fit was only ever a question about the battery, so “this is an LXT tool” settles it as completely as knowing the model number. Only the priced alternatives need the exact product.

“About this listing”

Below the verdict, the panel sometimes flags whether a listing looks like the brand’s own item, a recognised third-party maker’s own product (a Sigma lens for a Sony mount is neither Sony’s nor a copy), or an aftermarket copy — and what the published reviews say. These are advisory and separate. They never move the fit answer — an aftermarket pack can fit perfectly, and a well-reviewed one can still be the wrong platform.

When it says nothing

Silence is a designed behaviour, not a failure. DABA Match refuses to answer whenever the page doesn’t actually decide the question:

• The title names two platforms — a comparison page, or a multi-platform charger.
• The only clue is a voltage two brands share. 56V is EGO and it is also ECHO, and neither pack fits the other.
• It is a search or category page rather than one product.
• The listing simply isn’t recognisable.

Troubleshooting

The panel never appears.

Check you’re on a single product page at a supported retailer — it stays off search results and category listings on purpose. Retailer pages also load their titles late, so give it a few seconds. If you switched products without the page reloading, it re-reads within about a second.

Everything says “can’t verify”.

Your garage is probably still empty. Open the popup and add a tool.

It didn’t pick up a product I’m sure is supported.

Look at the “Read:” line at the bottom of the panel — that is the exact text it saw. If the title never names a platform, there was nothing to go on.

I rebuilt it and nothing changed.

Press Reload on the extension card at chrome://extensions.

My brand isn’t in the catalog.

Add it manually with the brand and the platform name off the battery. Verdicts work the same for manual entries.

Can I get my garage onto another computer?

Not yet. It is stored locally on purpose — see the privacy policy.