One thing to say up front. Google Sheets renders every dropdown through the native Data Validation menu, and that menu will not accept a formula. So no add-on draws the dropdown for you, FITS included.
What eats your afternoon is not the dropdown. It is building and maintaining the filtered list behind it. That is the part worth fixing.
The Old Way (Named Ranges + INDIRECT)
The classic method needs one named range per parent category. If column A can be Apple, Samsung, or Google, you create three named ranges called Apple, Samsung, and Google, each holding that brand's models.
Then you point the second dropdown at a formula that reads the parent cell and jumps to the matching range.
=INDIRECT(A2)It works until reality shows up. Named ranges cannot contain spaces, so "Google Pixel" breaks INDIRECT on the spot. They cannot start with a number. Every new category means creating another named range by hand.
Worse, each row needs its own helper setup if you want independent dropdowns down a table. Ten rows of intake data can mean ten fiddly ranges or an Apps Script you now have to maintain.
The FITS Way (Generate the Child List)
With FITS, you skip the named ranges entirely. Put one formula in a helper cell that builds the filtered list from the parent selection.
=FITS("List only the models for the brand " & A2 & " from this catalog, one per line: " & JOIN(", ", Catalog!A2:A200))Then you point native Data Validation at that helper cell using the "dropdown from a range" option. The AI does the lookup and cleaning. Sheets still draws the dropdown, exactly as it must.
The payoff is tolerance. Spaces, a brand typed as "google" instead of "Google", a new category nobody added a range for, none of it breaks the formula. It reads the parent and returns the sensible children.
When to Use Each
If your categories are few, fixed, and cleanly named, INDIRECT with named ranges is free and fine. Reach for =FITS() when categories change often, when names have spaces or arrive messy, or when a static mapping table is more upkeep than it is worth. This is really a categorization job, the same shape as tagging or sorting rows, which we cover in AI formulas for content marketers. If the source list itself is inconsistent, run our normalize data guide on it first. It is one of many jobs that used to need a formula pattern, all collected in automating Google Sheets tasks you used to need regex for.
Stop Building a Named Range for Every Category
FITS puts plain-English AI formulas inside Google Sheets. Generate the dependent list in one cell, then let Data Validation show it. Free tier included.