On the X1C it’s the worst you could have gotten, on the H2D it’s almost as bad.
There is absolutely no excuse to be launching a flagship in printer in 2025 using wireless-n (aka Wifi 4) from 2009
Wireless-ac (Wifi 5) launched in 2013
Wireless-ax (Wifi 6) launched in 2021
Wireless-be (Wifi 7) is from 2024, so you can have a legitimate excuse not to have this.
The H2D appears to be a great machine, but networking wise is ABSOLUTE GARBAGE.
You should have a Wifi 6E board in it for 2.4ghz, 5ghz and 6Ghz support with WPA3. You should have an ethernet port in it.
There is no legitimate excuse for a $2200+ machine to have networking that is 16 years out of date and is impossible to secure.
41 Likes
Its common not to have the latest wifi in IOT and other internet connected machines, as they are not sending a huge amount of data. Even latest Apple Homepod is on old wifi, power requirement is also a factor. Im a network engineer, and my house is still gigabit and 2.5g ethernet and wifi 5. There is little advantage to wifi 6 and 6E over 5. Wifi 7 is a major step forward, but too expensive for now.
24 Likes
“they’re not sending much data” is not a valid excuse, and it shows a fundamental lack of understanding about networking and is EXTREMELY AGGRAVATING to someone who understands networking. I’m tired of hearing this excuse, stop it.
First if you’re using live view they’re sending a stream of data, not large by modern standards but it needs reliability. 16 year old wireless standards cannot give that reliability. My X1C cannot reliably stream it’s camera to my desktop, and my prosumer networking gear gives me a very good performance analysis of it: the X1C is the problem.
Second you also have the security considerations. Wireless-N does not support WPA3 and WPA2 is compromised.
Third the newer wifi standards give improved reliability. Almost all of the features in Wifi 6 and Wifi 7 were about reliability in dense and noisy environments. speed was a secondary consideration/effect.
Fourth whenever an older device talks on your network it is slowing down the network FOR ALL DEVICES ON IT. Sure it might be only trying to stream 5mbps but when it can only transmit 65mbps that means it’s holding up your network for almost 8% (7.7%) of the airtime. on a newer standard such as just wireless-ax that would be reduced to 3.5% of the time
25 Likes
It comes down to cost/benefit, and its just not there for a 3D printer. If you have issues with your live-view, you need to look at your equipment and settings. I have 3 bambu printers and they are all smooth with live-view.
22 Likes
You’re flat wrong, stop making excuses for them to use SIXTEEN YEAR OLD INSECURE WIRELESS CHIPS
they could get wifi 6e chips from freaking DIGIKEY for $0.30/unit at 20k scale. they could and should be putting much more modern chips in their flagships.
Stop making excuses for their bad practices in the networking area. it’s a big blight mark on an otherwise awesome product.
as for your X1Cs live view working good for you: congratulations, we’re all happy for you. you can easily google that a lot of people have issues. 2.4Ghz is extremely vulnerable to co-channel interference. stop acting like it’s not a problem because you don’t understand the security and reliability issues and you haven’t seen a performance issue yourself.
28 Likes
Im not making excuses, i would be very happy with better wifi from them but its not a priority nor am I willing to pay more for it. At least we have wifi 5g which is a good upgrade, my house is all 5g and I was only keeping the 2.4g open for the printer.
22 Likes
You are absolutely making excuses dude.
25 Likes
No, @maximit is engaging is civil discourse. This is what the forum is here for. Just because they don’t agree with you doesn’t make them wrong.
32 Likes
No, @maximit is engaging is civil discourse. This is what the forum is here for. Just because they don’t agree with you doesn’t make them wrong.
Civil discourse can absolutely be making excuses, and the fact that they’re wrong makes them wrong. I even explained why they’re wrong.
I hate to be that person, but it seems like it is needed: but this is my area of expertise. I’m a networking software engineer for distributed systems.
Please trust that I know what I’m talking about in this area. I’ve even explained my concerns in detail and he just ignored them.
Also the excuse of “it’s not sending much data” is one I’ve heard before, even from people who should know better. It’s an extremely aggravating and uninformed response that I’m quite tired of hearing.
31 Likes
Your concerns are not the concerns for the majority of users.
- Does it connect to wifi - Yes
- Does it have top of the line wifi - No
- Does it need to have top of the line wifi for the vast majority of users - No
Bottom line is that your only recourse is to speak with your wallet and not purchase a printer.
21 Likes
That doesn’t make me wrong.
You shouldn’t have to leave your network permanently vulnerable to attack to allow a $2200+ 2025 flagship printer to connect. they only had to spend A FEW PENNIES per unit to give them proper networking. if they also gave them an ethernet port it would have maybe been $1/unit in total BOM at the scale they produce things.
I’m not asking them to have a top of the line card like a 2-stream triband wifi 7 MLO capable card.
but a 1 stream tri-band wireless 6e card would have addressed every complaint i have. It would have supported WPA3 so be able to be on a properly secured network, it would have all the new features of wifi 6 that make it more reliable in dense environments with significant cochannel (other people’s wireless networks on the same frequency) increasing reliability. Heck even a 2.4/5ghz only wireless 6 card would have solved almost all of it, 6Ghz is a “nice to have” not “must have”.
However WPA3 capability should be considered bare minimum for a 2025 device, in terms of security
i’m not asking them to put anything expensive in it, i’m asking them to put things that any informed user should consider bare minimum.
but hey, they gave us USB. if they’re smart they can spend no pennies and put the (standard) USB networking driver on the printers so we can attach whatever networking device we want and disable the internal wifi.
21 Likes
If you are a network engineer when you show up to a clients site that has a problem do you:
a. proceed to tell them their equipment is outdated and needs to be replaced to fix the issue.
b. work the problem and fix the issue.
If you are proficient in networking you should be able to solve all those issues you mentioned including security, congestion, overlapping channels etc. You work with what you have and you make it work.
All my IOT devices are on a separate less secure network with firewall controls allowing traffic needed on the ports specified. Its just an everyday part of dealing with less secure devices. You should be able to specify a channel that has the least overlap with your neighbours, personally i have mine on a DFS channel. Again an everyday part of networking, channel management.
Complaining on an open forum, then calling everyone that replied “wrong” is counterproductive. Put your energy to better use!
24 Likes
My 2 cents is it should have used a wifi dongle like the qidi plus 4. So we could remove it all together or update it to a nicer one. My files send instantly with my asus dongle.
8 Likes
It might be possible to use one on the USB port. We will have to test it when they start arriving. Might require the same brand chipset as the built in one… but might work.
1 Like
I’m not a “network engineer” I’m a “networking SOFTWARE ENGINEER”. I design communication standards, work with TLS, etc.
I work on what goes over the physical networking, and in a way that I have to know how the physical networking behaves very well (sources of unreliability, latency, etc) as i’m working with a form of distributed database among other things (clustering technology).
If you are proficient in networking you should be able to solve all those issues you mentioned including security, congestion, overlapping channels etc. You work with what you have and you make it work.
You must live in a rural area if you think i can change what channels my neighbor’s APs are on.
Complaining on an open forum, then calling everyone that replied “wrong” is counterproductive. Put your energy to better use!
.Except you were wrong my man.
16 Likes
I think they mentioned somewhere on the bambu wiki that hubs wont work, maybe a powered one will.
2 Likes
+1 but they won’t. And instead they will lock their own software firmware with the excuse to “secure it”, if you haven’t figured it out already they just care about the bottom line of profits and are trying to appeal to the mainstream user with the mentality of “set it and forget it” just like apple did back in the day.
This mindset is so blinding that the worshippers cannot see anything wrong being done by the company at all even if it’s directly harming them because they just don’t care, because they were already overpaying for something, but because it’s “convenient” it doesn’t matter.
For those who actually care, there will be other manufacturers who will step up to the task and deliver on every one of these concerns. Give it time.
10 Likes
For majority? Yes, this is not a concern for the majority. However, forum dwellers are not the majority, just FYI.
The flawed logic of Bambu is just too perfect not to troll around. They created all the controversy of Bambu Connect, MQTT, restrictions, etc. and all IN THE NAME OF SECURITY.
Then, they release a flagship device with flagship cost, no ethernet, and outdated wireless comm hardware. Yup, all in the name of security.
While I agree that not every IOT device needs the latest and greatest wifi controller, but 802.11n is too much outdated and actually has some real security flaws.
All in all, people must vote with a wallet. H2D from the specs is garbage. It is a regression or stagnation in many ways.
9 Likes
Just put your IoT devices on an isolated vlan. I’d be more worried about the Chinese firmware on my network than the risks introduced by the WiFi 4 tech.
4 Likes
that’s really not what the reviews have shown. I largely agree with your otherwise.
the bad networking is a glaring flaw in an otherwise great product.
but yes the entire lockdown to Bambu Studio/Connect in the name of “Security” then they have this abomination of networking shows that they’re being dishonest.
also people really don’t seem to understand that newer wifi isn’t just about fast, its almost all about more reliable.
but also: you do absolutely use a lot of data, when you download a time lapse. it’s bursty but newer wifi is better with bursty traffic
5 Likes