dragu, I wasn’t meaning to throw shade at you; it was the other user I responded to that got me. However, I would say the same, more or less.
There are security reasons they’re pushing this; one could argue it one way or another, but there is still some validity to those claims from a security perspective. I’ve followed security issues in the internet space and IoT space for awhile, so I don’t know; I have my opinions of it all and it sides on the side of security. Like I’m glad Bambu is trying to take the time to secure their systems where most companies just dump hardware out there and call it a day. Most of us will never abuse it, and may find some annoyances in those measures, but it does protect us from that potentiality down the road.
Jon mentioned X1Plus, and they were originally able to get that firmware on the system through an exploit. That same exploit could have been used to damage your printer in some fashion. I believe part of the agreement between Bambu and X1Plus was to make a more secure method for installing the custom firmware, that allowed them to patch out the exploit. It was mentioned/talked about too, about how this requirement would come about and old firmwares might not work. I recall reading it in passing, but can’t remember the specifics. The jist of it was around that thought though, that there would become a requirement of the firmware and slicer software needing to be up to a certain version to be able to take full advantage of all the cloud and ecosystem features.
Anyway, I know it’s annoying. It’s frustrating; having come from a time where the devices we bought just existed. Didn’t have to worry about firmwares, software updates, security issues, etc. Or things like is my device even going to work in the future when they stop releasing phone app updates?! Yeah… And there’s probably a question about if Bambu should be making it clearer that it’s an eco-system and not just a printer. Certainly when the X1 was first released, everything was a bit more stand alone, but they have evolved it into a more consumer driven product, with those same pros and cons that come with that setup. There’s a lot of people that certainly didn’t buy into the eco-system side, but it’s here now, and it’s not always easy to avoid.
As it is now, there’s at least some choice. I mean, speaking of X1Plus, you could go that route, although I think that’ll kick you from the cloud train, for better or worse. I’m not sure all the details/specifics, as I focus on Makerworld so tend to keep my stuff in parity with their expectations. For better or worse, hahaha (yeah, I want to use orca more, or other beta features)