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iFixit wants to fix the soldering iron (www.engadget.com)

submitted 2 months ago by Ghostalmedia to c/technology

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Ah any reason why Firefox decided not to include WebSerial?

Maybe you don’t want to buy the Station, or you left it at home. In either event, you can simply plug the iron into your computer and configure it via WebSerial.

You’ll need a browser based on Chrome to pull this trick off, as Mozilla has decided (at least, for now) to not include the capability in Firefox. In testing, it worked perfectly on both my Linux desktop and Chromebook.

Unfortunately, plugging the iron into your phone won’t work, as the mobile version of Chrome does not currently support WebSerial. But given the vertical layout of the interface and the big touch-friendly buttons, I can only assume that iFixit is either banking on this changing soon or has a workaround in mind. Being able to plug the iron into your phone for a quick settings tweak would be incredibly handy, so hopefully it will happen one way or another.

The WebSerial interface not only gives you access to all the same settings as plugging the iron into the Power Station does, but it also serves as the mechanism for updating the firmware on the iron.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I believe this is one of those Google "F it I am going to make this protocol my own way without anyone else's input" which results in security concerns and also Mozilla prioritizes it being a browser more.

Searching serial looks like this is still the case. There are security and privacy concerns over it.

https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

For those not wanting go search:

Mozilla's Position

Devices that offer serial interfaces often expose powerful, low-level functions over the interface with little or no authentication. Exposing that sort of capability to the web without adequate safeguards presents a significant threat to those devices. A user deliberately installing a site-specific add-on may be adequate, given sufficiently understandable consent copy.

Seems reasonable to me.

Google mainly built this WebSerial shit because they HAVE TO to make Chrome OS more than just a useless web browser.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Good news, I guess?

https://github.com/kuba2k2/firefox-webserial

I've only used it to do some esp32 stuff with homeassistant, but it does work.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I've also used this for the esp32 and firefox and it worked just fine in that case