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by kwiens 638 days ago
The LED on the iron turns orange once it reaches your target temperature. It glows purple while it's heating, and blue when it's safe to touch.
2 comments

How cultures are different across the globe, I would have used RED for hot, orange for heating and green for safe (instead of orange, purple and blue - love purple though!)
If I had to guess, it's for accessibility, for red/green colorblindness.
Interesting, I'm not sure that colorblindness can be severe enough for that to be a problem. I'm red/green colorblind, but I have no issue with stoplights or LEDs. Things onlystart to get hairy once the spectrum shifts closer to the browns such as forest green or burnished slate.
I would settle for red while hot and yellow while heating, but keep blue for safe (for colorblind reasons as mentioned by other commenter)
> It glows purple while it's heating

This is not correct, it pulses blue indicating the iron is heating, and when turned off, pulses purple while cooling.

You appear to be replying to the co-founder of iFixit, so presumably he knows what he's talking about.

https://www.ifixit.com/Document/CPMKU1yOZAYVXbpB/FixHub_Sold...

What he says matches their documentation as well:

>Blue LED: The iron is below 40° C / 100° F and is safe to touch.

>Purple LED: The iron is actively heating up or cooling down. Iron tip is not safe to touch.

>Orange LED: The iron has reached the user-set temperature and is ready for soldering. Iron tip is not safe to touch.

I was quoting from the article, which, admittedly, isn’t straight from the horses mouth. If there’s a discrepancy, one of them is wrong (I think I know which).

> While there’s no display, the illuminated ring behind the grip does provide a visual indicator of what the iron is doing: solid blue means it has power but the heating element is off, a pulsing blue indicates the iron is heating, and orange means it has reached the desired temperature. If you flick the heater switch off, the ring pulses purple until it cools back off and returns to blue.