| Then in the 1920s, electric versions came along. They were more convenient but not much smarter. You plugged them in and hoped for the best. No temperature control, no safety shutoff. Just heat. Better hope it doesn't get too hot.🔥 Power Behind the Heat Then came the magic of analog control. Engineers got clever and started adding things like bimetallic strips that bend when they get too hot and cut the power. Simple and smart. There were also PTC thermistors to help control the temperature without any fancy computers. And let’s not forget thermal fuses: one-time-use heroes that stop the party if things overheat.
But here’s where it gets really cool—modern flatirons aren’t just about heat anymore. They’ve got major electronics inside. Many use microcontrollers to adjust the heat to keep it just right. That means they’re running feedback loops, using analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), and even doing PWM (pulse-width modulation) to fine-tune the heat. All in real time. And remember: some of these tools are sampling the temperature 100 times per second. Yup. Your flatiron is checking itself 100 times a second to make sure it's being gentle on your hair.
There’s even firmware. I came across a teardown of a Dyson flatiron that uses a Freescale (NXP) microcontroller, SPI flash memory, and a battery management system that locks the device if the cells aren’t perfectly balanced. That’s more than smart, it’s security-conscious. Or repair-unfriendly, depending on your point of view.
Flat Out Brilliant What started as two hot metal plates is now a tightly integrated control system. And honestly? I love it. It's easy to overlook the engineering in everyday objects, but once you peek under the hood, you realize: there's nothing basic about a flatiron.
Even the most everyday things can be surprisingly brilliant under the surface.
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