iFixit

We’ve bled for AirPods. We’ve sliced them, melted them, cursed at them. For ten years, Apple’s wireless earbuds have earned a well-deserved 0 out of 10 for repairability. The AirPods 5 finally broke that streak. They’re the most repairable AirPods earbuds ever. Which isn’t saying much: they still earn just a 2 out of 10, and the charging case is as difficult to open as ever.

Finally, finally, the Steam Frame is here! Five years ago, rumors of an internal Valve project codenamed Deckard rocked the VR enthusiast world. Since then, gamers have salivated over the dream of a wearable all-in-one PC that could play both dedicated VR games and the rest of their Steam libraries, without the hassle of a tether or base stations. We’ve been partnered with Valve since 2022, selling parts and tools and making guides for hardware including the Steam Deck and Index.

The iPhone 18 Pro’s little mechanical pupil is irresistible. A bunch of moving parts make for a good excuse to put our brand new camera under the microscope. We weren’t prepared for the screen’s plastic frame to tear apart on three of the four phones we opened, though. More on that later. There’s plenty to admire inside the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, from that intricate variable aperture to a screwed-in battery tray and a much larger cooling system. There are also some uncomfortable repair tradeoffs.

From a spring kickoff in Italy to a summer full of hacker camps and Maker Faires, iFixit tools and the Street Team showed up at events across Europe this year. Different places, same idea: repair knowledge grows when people share it. Come along for the ride and meet some of the Street Team members who make it happen. Our first stop was Hackaday Europe in Lecco, where hardware hackers, makers, and repair-minded people came together around open technology and creative problem-solving.

This article originally appeared on repair.eu, the site of the Right to Repair Europe coalition, on September 7, 2026. Example of the energy label for smartphones. Item 6 is the repairability score. See the European Commission’s product list. In the case of online sales, the label can be accessible via a pictogram that only shows the energy efficiency. Since June 20th, 2025, smartphones and tablets sold in the EU are subject to repairability requirements.

Today, like so much of the tech world, as Apple announced their Fall 2026 product lineup, the iFixit team readied our bingo cards and placed bets on whether John Ternus would say “one more thing” (Matt won). Usually we’re a pretty optimistic bunch. But looking at the iPhone Duo today we agreed: This one probably won’t be fixable. We’ve been tearing down foldable smartphones for seven years. Even before our picks slid into the bezel of the 2019 Samsung Galaxy Fold, it had a reputation for breaking.

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Good news! We just released seven new soldering tips for our FixHub Smart Soldering Iron. If you’ve been waiting with bated breath, pop on over to our store. New today: Bevel Cup 1.5, Bevel Cup 2.6, Angle Knife, Angle Cone, Bent Cone, Wedge 4.0, and Heat Insert Tip. But if you just read that paragraph thinking, “You can get different tips for your soldering iron!?” then you’re reading the right article.

The FixHub Soldering Iron Heat Insert Tip installs heat-set brass threaded inserts (M2 through M5) into 3D-printed and plastic parts. Designed for use with the FixHub Smart Soldering Iron.

The Galaxy Z Fold8 is the nicest foldable Samsung has made. It’s thinner, lighter, and, crucially, shaped less like a weird folding tech demo and more like a normal expensive thing people might actually buy. Five million preorders suggest Samsung isn’t alone in thinking the category has finally grown up (or maybe just that the preorder deals were too good to pass up). Samsung has also gone directly after foldables’ most visible scar: the crease down the middle of the inner display.