[straight-shoota]

IronOS is actually a firmware, not a classical operating system. The soldering iron is like many modern appliances a smart device and contains a RISC-V CPU on which the firmware runs. I bought a Pinecil as well this year, and it's really a great tool, and I dare say much more versatile and powerful than many traditional soldering stations which cost much more.

[Cockbrand]

I got the older TS100, for which IronOS was created originally, and it makes such a difference compared to a "dumb" soldering iron. I'm not very skilled in soldering, but the tool makes up for a lot of that.

Nevertheless, I would never have thought that I'd ever own a soldering iron requiring firmware.

[sshine]

I still don’t get it.

My soldering iron is a hot piece of metal with a plastic handle. It works. What am I missing out on?

[straight-shoota]

Getting hot has a lot of complexity, actually: How hot does it get? How can you select the temperature and how accurate is that selection? How well does it maintain the selected temperature?

Simple soldering irons often don't even have temperature selection. And their predetermined temperature drops significantly when heat is transferred into the soldering pieces.

I can dial the Pinecil very accurately to anywhere between 100° C and 400° C, to provide the optimal temperature for the soldering job and it meticulously maintains that temperature (given the power supply is beefy enough).

Another nice feature is automatic stand-by when the tool isn't used. This preserves the tip, saves energy and lowers the risk of accidentally setting anything on fire. It automatically heats up blazingly fast when I pick it up again.

[Cockbrand]

Pretty much this. Abridged for my little knowledge: I can easily set up my favorite temperature, and I can be sure that it's constant no matter how big the part I'm soldering. As a bonus, the soldering iron cools down when I'm not using it, making accidental touches less painful. Another bonus: there's a "boost" button for very stubborn solder joints.

[jmye]

Got it, thanks! That makes way more sense to me.

[Kailhus]

I’m sorry but I still don’t get it either. If it’s hot enough, you’ll know it’s ready when it starts melting whatever you use to solder. Why would one need anything more?

[vineyardlabs]

As a general rule, anything that uses electricity to get hot is going to need to run a PID if you want it to maintain a stable temperature. Once you've got the microcontroller in there it's trivial to add nice little features like thermal runaway detection or auto cooling/auto heating when the iron is put down/picked up, which are a couple of things the pinecil does.