Part 1 - The idea
At Candera, we are currently working on the next sample for our showcase. In this series we will let you in on our initial ideas, the first concept drafts in Figma, the failures and the - ultimately - the final result.
To let you be part of our development process and also give you insights on which parts are revised until the final sample is available we are keeping a small developer’s diary.
The target
Our solution will resolve around the Pinecil smart soldering iron.
Here’s a quick description also found directly on the official website:
The Pinecil is a smart mini portable soldering iron with a 32-bit RISC-V SoC featuring a sleek design, auto standby and it heats up to an operating temperature in just 12 seconds when paired with a sufficiently powerful power supply unit – such as the PinePower. It runs a community built firmware that is simple to update and altered to your use-case need. We offer a wide selection of tips for the Pinecil in the Pine Store, so the soldering iron is ready to aid you in whatever projects you’re about to undertake.
Our goal is to improve the usability and user experience by adding a full display with easy interactions for the user as an added value to the integrated small display. By providing this users can change values in an easier and much faster way and experience the soldering process in a new way.
The initial plan
After checking the principally available functionalities we have prepared some initial concept designs in Figma:
The following functions should be covered by our user interface:
- Showing the actual temperature of the soldering iron
- Showing the currently used power (Watt) of the soldering iron
- Showing the current working mode
- Setting different target temperatures
- Showing heating-up and cooling-down progress
- Setting presets for different use cases
- Boost mode
- Sleep/pause mode
We are now working on the intial solution in Candera CGI Studio and will keep you up-to-date in further posts regarding our progress, design updates, challenges, etc.
Stay Tuned!
PS: In case you want to see the Pinecil in action, there is also a good review video on YouTube:
