Bambu, this is an example of “not listening” to your customers. I think it’s safe to say that Wi-Fi predates Bambu by ohhh… by 25 years or so? So how is it that the Bambu engineering department feels it is totally acceptable to release a product that tells, not asks, the non-technical user to bend to Bambu’s deficiencies? Simply mind-boggling!
Here’s a novel idea that I might suggest. “Finish your design” before working on such trivialities such as MakerWorld.
@Juho articulates what many simply don’t say.
What is also ignored by Bambu is the fact that many ISPs and apartment complexes do not allow users to manage their Wi-Fi routers or only provide limited management options. For example, until very recently, Frontier Networks via their agreement with Amazon’s Eero, didn’t even allow users to disable 5GHz. So what are users supposed to do if they are blocked from changing their Wi-Fi settings, such as when the Wi-Fi is part of the rent they pay in their apartment? Has Bambu ever considered these real-world realities?
Bambu, you can take this feedback in the spirit in which it is given or you can chose to lock yourself in the walled garden you built and ignore the customer at your own peril. The question Bambu Leadership has to ask itself is how important is building brand loyalty? Well, when you ignore your customer’s pleas and insult them by blocking them from self support, that’s inevitably what happens.
What do I mean when I say self support? Here are the basics that every other tech company outside Bambu does as a default:
- Static IP address option.
- Permanent offline setup without the requirement of connecting to the mothership(cloud).
- This is at the heart of security not to mention privacy matters and the fact that it was incorporated(halfway) into the X1E shows that you have the ability, just not the will.
- Wired setup. Duh!!!
- Offline firmware upgrade support in perpetuity?
- So you’re patting yourselves on the back for finally allowing offline firmware updates. But why does Bambu cut off only the last three firmware rollbacks? What purpose did it serve?
- Maintaining a few MB of firmware on your site costs you nothing. There is no technical justification for blocking the user from rolling back to rev 0 if that is what they received out of the box. As a result Bambu comes across as being a tech-bully when your actions stonewall the customer and by deed state “too bad, our way or the highway”.
It’s not even thought of that these items would be missing from any Wi-Fi design. This list is not features, they are basic Linux 0.01 functions that your engineers have to purposefully disable in the core firmware. In other words, you have to go out of your way to say “Customer, you can’t have this”.