2 months ago
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I need to make a confession before we get into this: I have never, in my life, used a soldering iron. I am terrified of hurting myself or breathing in too many fumes that I’ll keel over. I think it’s because most of my history with soldering irons has been sitting in the poorly ventilated garages of guys I’ve dated who wanted to save money by fixing their stuff. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be that way.
In honor of the iPhone 16 coming to fruition and the fact that the EU has mandated smartphones to be repairable, iFixit has announced its own branded soldering iron. The FixHub is a bonafide portable soldering system with a 55Wh battery and USB-C charging capabilities. You can buy the soldering iron, which ships with a Bevel 1.5 tip, for $80 or spring for the entire portable soldering station for $250, which includes a cleaning brush and a silicone work mat. There’s also a package with a whole tool set for $300. The tools include standard DIY tools like flush cutters, wire strippers, angled tweezers, and, my favorite of them all, a spudger.
© Florence Ion / GizmodoThe iFixit soldering iron comes with a heat-resistant cap.
This soldering iron is made to be mobile. It comes with iFixit’s 65W GaN Fast charger to juice up the power station. Then, you can use the kickstand to prop it up and crane it toward you to control the temperature. The soldering iron has an integrated accelerometer that cools it when idle, which helps with battery life but, more importantly, keeps people from burning their fingers. This is good because the battery can power the soldering iron to an impressive 100W, a voltage usually reserved for more heavy-duty soldering irons.
The power station and soldering iron can receive firmware updates. iFixit says it will also be able to calibrate the battery health and accelerometer inside in the coming weeks.
Thinking about how hot this all is makes my fingers twinge a bit. I’ve always wanted to solder, mainly because I want to mod my collection of Tamagotchi and add backlights to some of them, but the heat scares me. I did watch through iFixit’s helpful YouTube video on how to start soldering. But I’ve been in the throes of smartphone season and couldn’t set aside a space to make the magic happen.
There are a ton of soldering irons available out there for projects of all sorts, and their prices range, but not all of them are user-friendly. The point of iFixit’s FixHub is approachability, so you bring one home to fix your stuff—like the battery on your iPhone, a car stereo, or a connection inside your laptop. There’s a cheat sheet inside the kit that you can paste on the wall above a makeshift soldering station with safety tips and helpful reminders. Instructions and diagrams for all the materials will also be on the iFixit page.
The iFixit FixHub will be on sale on Oct. 15 in the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe.
