What sticks with me from the past few months of events isn’t the number of calendar days or the names of the people I’ve met (I’m terrible with names, by the way), and it’s certainly not the details of all the talks I sat in on. It’s the stories of the people I met. Their weird questions. The things they carry in their backpacks “just in case.”
At Easterhegg, someone came up to me with their Pro Tech Toolkit they’d bought back in 2017. Obviously still very much in use and on the road, but over the years, it had been modified: The Bit Driver had been replaced by an electric screwdriver handle. The setup was tweaked. They’d carved out space in the foam for the new handle. They numbered the sections of the grid screw tray built into the lid of the Mako kit, and they’d added some essentials to their roll (a pair of scissors, a pencil). They really made it their own. It was a living thing that had grown with its owner.
This Spring, We Tried Something New
At Maker Faire Heilbronn, we set up like we always do: tools out, gear ready, conversations waiting to happen. Same at Salon Primevère in Lyon, and at Easterhegg in Koblenz. But at some events, we tried something different. We started handing out free Jimmys, as more than swag, asking for a trade. If you took one, you promised to contribute something back to our community platform: a guide, a tip, a fix, your own repair story.
People paused and thought about what they actually knew, what they could share. Some had a story ready. Others had to think for a moment. Interestingly enough, not everyone immediately sees themselves as someone who has knowledge worth sharing.
But in those conversations, almost always we’d find something that they could contribute. Maybe you’ve never opened up your smartphone, but you’ve fixed an IKEA lamp switch. Maybe you know, through hard-won experience, how important it is to descale your kettle regularly to keep your heating element alive.
That’s what makes iFixit special, even to me and even after so many years: More than just a tool shop, we’re a community. And we constantly invite people to take part in it.
Jimmy
Our Jimmy fits comfortably into your pocket—and you can easily open almost any electronic device. Cut, pry or slide, our Jimmy does it all. Rather than break fingernails, destroy screens or rip cables, you’re off investing in a universal opening tool that will never let you down.
FixHub Is a Hit
Of course, part of being out there is also showing what we’ve been building. And luckily with FixHub, people get it immediately. They see it, pick it up, turn it over. You could see it register: someone actually thought this through.
When tools are built by people who use them, they don’t need much of a sales pitch. The details do the talking: The iron feels good when you pick it up. The grip is natural. The cable feels premium, and you don’t need to be convinced that you won’t melt it if you accidentally touch a hot tip to it. But the real shift happened when people actually used it hands-on, trying things out. It felt like something made by people who wanted to use it themselves.
FixHub Soldering Toolkit
The Soldering Toolkit has everything you need to solder at home or on the go, housed in a durable tool roll. This kit is ideal for professionals and hobbyists alike, with high-quality tools designed for precision and convenience.
Workshops: The “I Can Actually Do This” Moment
People who solder a lot immediately understand the value of FixHub. But we also designed it to be a great first soldering iron, something that opens up the world of soldering for people who might have previously been intimidated by the idea.
Hands-on workshops and activities are where this really clicks: You could sometimes see hesitation at the start, and it might require the presenter’s assurance that everyone present will end up achieving something (especially when it comes to SMD soldering), but yes, that moment came!
Nothing more exciting than the moment someone realizes: “Wait, I can actually do this.”
We saw that at the European premiere of the iFixit Flashlight Soldering Kit at Atelier des Makers in Aubigny-sur-Nère. Fifty participants sat down, worked their way through it, and went home with a flashlight they had soldered themselves.
The “Kid Drop-Off” Problem (Yes, That’s a Thing)
In fact, FixHub makes soldering so easy that somewhere along the way, our workshop area started to look suspiciously like childcare.
Parents would show up, scan the table, look at the tools, look at us, and you could see the idea forming. “This is educational,” they’d say. And then they’d leave.
Don’t get me wrong, getting kids excited about taking things apart is the dream. But there’s a difference between sparking curiosity and running a pop-up daycare with a table full of 420℃ soldering irons.
What we really want is for parents to share the joy of soldering with their kids. And fortunately, we’ve seen a lot of that, too. At Easterhegg, one dad showed up every day with his daughters and stayed. He sat down with them, even brought his own FixHub toolkit (yes, you can hook up two irons at one station ;-)), and taught them how to solder himself.
Watching that felt right, like seeing something we’ve lost and are slowly rediscovering. Learning together, passing on knowledge.
Spring Cleaning Is a Gateway to Repair
We met thousands of people this spring. Many of them were curious, engaged, and genuinely interested. But curiosity doesn’t always turn into action.
And depending on where you are, that gap looks very different. At maker events or within the bespoke Chaos community, people are already halfway there. They just need tools, or a place to push further.
At Fair Handeln, for example, it’s a different story: Yes, people cared. About sustainability, about waste, about doing better. But repair? For a lot of people, that still felt like a leap.
And sometimes, that hesitation was surprisingly explicit. We heard things like, “That’s not for me,” or “You should talk to my husband instead.” Not because the interest wasn’t there, but because somewhere along the way, people had learned that repair wasn’t theirs to do.
So we tried to meet them where they were. We set up a simple “Clean your smartphone” activity right at the booth. And it worked!
When you clean your smartphone, you start learning about repair: Does your charge cable sometimes connect inconsistently? Sure, you might need a new charge port if it’s gotten corroded, but chances are you’ve just jammed dust and pocket lint so deep into the port that the cable doesn’t sit properly against the contacts anymore.
Cleaning out the port is a maintenance activity that gets people remembering that you don’t have to take “broken” for an answer. Almost everything broken can be fixed.
We’ll get another shot at that soon: in Azay-le-Rideau, in Lecco, in Berlin. Different crowds, different starting points, same challenge: turning curiosity into confidence.
And sometimes, that doesn’t even require us to be there in person.
This spring, we also supported workshops remotely, from sessions with the European Commodity Clearing to events in Portugal, like JEEC in Lisbon and the Repair Café Algarve Circular Economy Fair in Loulé. We worked with partners like Telecoop at Maker Faire Paris, equipping their mobile booth on responsible digital use with tools and a bit of guidance.
If you’re planning something similar, reach out. We’re happy to support, lend tools, or help you get started.
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