Improvements suggestion (Web interface + Second soldering)

Hi all!

This is not exactly a question, but I haven't found better place :(

While this suggestions are meant mostly for iFixit team, but because I couldn't find any e-mail to write to iFixit, I'm writing them here on the forum. And on the second thought, maybe you (the other users) have similar feelings like me and you can - so to speak - "vote" on those suggestions :)

Before I begin, a little story.

If you're from iFixit team, please read. If you here just for suggestions, just jump straight to "Suggestions" section :)

I'm not any pro user, not pro repairer. I just needed good soldering iron for very occasional fixes. Or maybe for future when I finally some day start learning with electronics... anyway, here in Poland most of soldering irons are available as iron connected directly to mains in the wall. Sometimes maybe with additional temp control and nothing more. And it takes few minutes to heat up...

So I asked friend who did some electronics and he immiedately proposed me iFixit. Well... it wasn't really proposal... it was more like "I've got iFixit, and you must get it, there's nothing else so good". (Friend moved to US, I'm still in Poland)

I looked into website, ordered with kinda pain in the wallet and tear in my eye due to price. Yeah, I didn't want to order small pieces, so I decided to order probably most expensive set "FixHub | Power Series Soldering Toolkit" with almost everything. Along some tools like Magnetic Pickup Tool and FixMat (that's a cool one!).

I've had slight problems at first startup (read 1st suggestion in which I explained), but after 2 uses... I must say... I was amazed and this is exactly textbook example of difference between "price" vs. "value". Because this thing is %#*@ cheap by what it gives!

• Battery pack so I can use it on-the-go? Hell yeah! I do occasional side gigs (literal gigs lol) being technicial/live sound mixing guy, and I've seen multiple times that other techs fixed something right before concert because something broke. Other tools I looked in the shops? Need standard wall power... and while there's a lot of power at concerts, it's always very inconvinient to iron with cable hanging on the back of the rack in half-darkness or whatever, so it's great to have battery!
• Heating speed - ON MY GOD IT'S SO FAST!!! It takes me 10x longer to take this Hub from my closet, open pouch, take the Hub off, take the USB-C table off it, take the iron out of it, connect together and start than actually wait for heating... The tip of iron gets into 270C in just few seconds! There's your value, RIGHT THERE! I love it. No need to connect ironing tool into socket, and go make a tea and eat half a dinner because now you have to wait 5 minut with traiditional ironing tool to heat... not to mention, how unprecise such heating it, while in iFixit I can specify temperature very precisely.
• Oh, should I mention the solder cap so I don't burn myself by accident when I finish using it?

I also ordered this to be able to push insets into my 3D prints (so I need to heat inset and just push), and I was worried that minimum possible temperature of 200C is too high for this, as PLA starts melting at about 65-70C. Turned out... I didn't need to worry, because I would need constant heat of 65C for weeks/months in order to PLA start melting. I started with 200C and I wasn't able to melt that plastic, so... yeah, no need to worry if you want to use this with 3D printing, as you still need to set it to 250-270C like your 3D Printer does in order to melt plastic fast :D

After those experiences - even including initial problems - it's still the best money I've ever spent. Even for my very occasional use (just few times a year at most!).

Finally the Suggestions:

1. Web interface

At first I've had problems starting device, read few articles, turns out some devices were sent with some weird problematic firmware and I just had to do update. Sounds easy right? Especially that I found out, that I can simply connect device into computer, and there's nice web site that can access RS232 devices - and this soldering hub to be specific.

Well... there was issue I didn't understand at I don't think I read somewhere specifically - The Hub has separate web UI than soldering iron itself.

I mean - it's obvious that they have since they are different devices, but it wasn't exactly clear.

What I mean is: on Hub web UI I can upgrade Hub's firmware. But I need to connect iron separately to computer in order to upgrade Soldering Iron firmware. Then I also discovered that I can control Soldering Iron from Chrome (not exactly useful feature to me, due to where my docking station is placed on the desk, but hey, cool feature and might be very useful in some occasions!).

The problem I had is that on Hub's web UI, I was seeing that Iron was connected to one of the USB-C ports, so I was somehow trying to find a way to set parameters of Soldering Iron and upgrade firmware (essentially, access UI of the Iron itself since this is was I was seeing in Google Search)! But it turned out to be not possible and I just had to connect Iron separately.

So the suggestion is:

• Can we have possibility of upgrading Iron's firmware along with controlling specific Irons through Hub's web interface? That would make updating firmware and general operation far easier to understand for first-time users :)
• Also, on https://www.ifixit.com/fixhub/console please explain why Firefox is not compatible. Given how false such info are on many websites, I tend to simply switch User Agent to access website on Firefox. But it turned out, you need Serial access through browser which is really technical limitation this time. Please just include "Hey, you're browser doesn't support Serial access so you need to use another one" :)

2. Offline web UI

Given what I wrote about live concert situation, usually there's no internet at the place, and even if we could use LTE/5G, it's very inconvinient as we already have our devices usually connected to mixers or other audio control equipment, so switching networks (thus disconnecting Wi-Fi) is not really convinient as there's quite high level of multi-tasking during stage setup.

That might be already done as it's possible to configure web page to save itself into browser in a way to work offline, I haven't tested to be honest.

3. Official Longer USB-C cable

The Hub supports up to 2 soldering irons at the same time. Personally I don't find need for this, but it might be very useful for some people. The problem I discovered is that the USB-C cable that somes with Hub+Iron bundle is ok for personal use, but I feel it might be slightly too short for dual-people use. I might be wrong because I was not in two-people situation - so let the others decide if this suggestion is even valid in the first place.

It's not really problem to buy longer high-wattage USB-C cable. But the official one is very flexible which is great for the ironing task, and finding something so flexible is kinda impossible.

Thanks iFixit!