Never understood the Handy requirement. Never used it. My X1C connects with no issues. Same with cloud. Click print and it starts after 3 seconds.
By the way. I made this post not to discount what OP is saying, but to say there is value for people in certain aspects of what Bambu offers, that others might not see the value in, or think matter. I made this post specifically because of the comment about makerworld. Because for me, that’s one of the parts about their system I like the most. It provides value that I can’t find anywhere else, so. I mean, it’s an area where I want to see them put resources and develop further. I have my own opinions and wishlist for that side of things. Haha.
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If I were to review it, I’d say “It’s not the most useless app”.
I do like the way things are presented when printing from the app. However, that’s when it’s setup right. I mean, it can be like browsing through a catalog of parts, you select the one you need, hit print, and bob’s your uncle!
If no care is given to setting up the print profiles and stuff though, then it’s meh.
That’s the failing of their system though, is there’s a lot of meh effort you have to dig through, and it reflects poorly on the system as a whole. It’s difficult to see how well it can work, because it’s gunked up by meh.
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Somehow I am not impressed.
Here’s the thing. I really don’t have a problem with a closed system like BBL has made. I absolutely love the “plug n play” aspect of my A1. My issue comes with the lack of responsiveness of BBL when there is an issue. Example, the camera “stream” has been screwed up for months and BBL hasn’t fixed it. I think where BBL needs to improve is the Customer Service aspect of their business model.
The fact is, that the BBL machines aren’t built for the tinkerer, the person that wants to tweak every aspect of the whole process. There’s plenty of options out there for that, heck I’ve got an Ender 3 S1 Plus that required so much tinkering I tinkered it right into a box and stuck it in a closet…and I’m a bit of a techno geek. The BBL are made for people who want to click print, and have it print. I think the issue is, the hardware is so good that the tinkerers want to use it but they want to use it their way, which is not the way it’s designed to be used.
Could BBL make improvements by opening up some, absolutely. Does BBL have a financial stake in controlling access, absolutely. Better customer service from BBL would go a long way to reducing the griping.
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Opening up the system will only cater to the small group who want to tinker with their printers. This is not really the main demographic that bambu are going after, they are looking more at the market where people want a machine you set and forget, with a high percentage of success. This is the main reason for a walled garden, lots of tech companies do this.
I think people are stuck in the past where they think everything should be open source, maybe in the early days that helps get things moving but as technology progresses this model does payback on the investment put in to make great leaps. You will often find when hardware is opensource the end users are expected to accept a product which isn’t polished and hide behind the OS wall as an excuse to release a part finished product.
MQTT is a great thing to have for me as I can monitor my machine using this on my local network. I do have a X1C and not a P1P.
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You bring up some valid points. I love our Bambu BUT I cannot use it to make our companies products because they must go out to the cloud and we lose all control of our designs. In those cases we must use our Prusa printers which are not as fast. This will hurt Bambu because we will have to buy other manufactures (slower) printers as we continue expanding.
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I hope that BL will do as you wish. X1CPlus may be an alternative (did not fully check it yet) but would be the last option to not loose warranty / support.
Warranty is lost at one point or another so… here are your options too 
Having been around at the start of personal computing – my first was a 40-lb Compaq suitcase “portable” – I completely agree with your analogy. I vividly remember DOS and CPM coding and imputs to get any-damn-thing to work. More frustrating than anything else, but you could see where it was all going. The first Apple and IBM PC were revelations! Finally no more need to type arcane text instructions to get the computer to do something!
Instead, you could just WORK on them, producing words, spreadsheets, graphics, etc and much more etc.
Exactly why I love my A-1! I’d messed around long enough with the fiddley-bs of other 3D printers, trying to get prints made, but having to constantly adjust things, level the bed countless times, etc and much etc. My SIL, who also went through this stage before discovering Bambu Labs, now runs two X1s nearly 24/7, PRODUCING his builds, which he sells.
Is Bambu perfect? Of course not. But it’s far better than anything else on the market, and part of the reason is that they’ve simplified the process of 3D printing so that you can quickly and easily do actual work with them . . . just like the first Apple and IBM PC.
It is nothing new to say that the ecosystem created by Bambulab delights all those users who do not want to have to adjust, modify or improve their 3D printers, they just want to print.
It is also not at all unreasonable to assume that they are printers with a closed environment where we cannot, nor should we, modify anything because most of the time it is not necessary.
It also doesn’t make sense to me to offer help from the community to improve their products and participate in their developments when they are the first to not want it that way.
I am a person who spends the day repairing, modifying and improving 3D printers for his clients, I love knowing how things work and I would like to know the ins and outs of these printers, but it is not a priority because they work really well and have no excessive breakdowns
From my point of view, the problem with this environment is security; the fact that it is based on a cloud system poses a lot of risks and problems for developers, companies or even any printing service that has signed an NDA with its clients.
It is perhaps at this point where Bambulab should be more transparent and allow its system to function 100% isolated from the internet if the user so decides.
Perhaps for this more professional client, who cares about confidentiality and who needs to have security about their designs, this will be solved by the X1E, but there is no exact information about it either.
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you can save the gcode direct to the SD card plugged into your laptop without having to process it in the Cloud.
As a tiny lion said above me, one can use the sd card and all that. I see this argument made often enough, but the printer is capable of being operated like every printer I’ve owned before it for the past 10 years. When my internet went down during the snow storms, I just used the SD card. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. The point is, the printer doesn’t magically stop functioning because the internet takes a nap.
I don’t think Bambu is ignoring their customers. They are obviously doing things to appease their customers, like making sure there’s still a path for custom firmware, as people want. Or working to make sure there’s the API to still SECURELY access the printer’s systems. They aren’t going to change course because a smaller minority is yelling their head off, but they do still listen and make smaller changes based on what people are yelling about, while still going full steam ahead to their apparent goals as a company. Some may not like that, but they are still consumer focused, very apparently.
From my point of view, the problem with this environment is security
I think this is true of most cloud based systems, or systems that just connect to the internet in general. I’m pretty sure it’s an ongoing issue with IOT devices having really bad security. Part of the adjustments Bambu is making, is working to further secure the system. Stuff like fixing the exploit that was used to put that customer firmware on the printer, or the streams people were tapping into for like those screens or home assistant. They said they were going to secure that, but still provide an API, so.
The thing with the firmware really got me because like, why do you expect a company to leave an unpatched vulnerability in such an internet connected device? People yell at Bambu about wanting them to be more secure, but then also yell at them when they actually take steps to fix security holes.
Still, regardless. If you want to be paranoid, you can still operate the machine without connecting it to the internet. You can isolate the thing and it’ll still function. Let’s just stop with this myth that the printer needs to be connected to the cloud to function.
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There have been a lot of bugs and crashes in Bambu Studio on the Mac with the last firmware and studio updates. Seems to happen most as the print file has been uploaded and is being downloaded to the printer. I have not figured out what the exact cause is yet.
Likewise, I’ve had more print failures on projects using the creators print profile. I suspect it’s print profiles made on an earlier version of studio or earlier version of firmware, but no proof other than it’s happening now when it wasn’t before.
Same with instances where the pre-print calibration sequence tries to go lower than the lower limit and doesn’t stop until the left side bearing gets pulled up out of it’s socket by a good 1/4 inch.
Maybe my comment has been misinterpreted.
Any bambulab user knows that they can use the printer without the need for the Internet, losing the remote control capabilities that the cloud system allows offcorse.
But in any case, every time the firmware needs to be updated you need to connect the printer not only to the internet but also to the cloud. For this reason i said 100% isolated functionality without internet.
And it is not a question of paranoia, it is a question that since it is a closed system where it cannot be analyzed what data is or is not shared with the cloud server, you never know for sure if the confidentiality of the models is protected or not.
@JonRaymond Thanks for the tip. It was not that way back when I got my P1P.
What do you mean about the initial pairing? Are you saying that for a new printer the config file on the SD card will not work?
@3dEd I was considering firmware part of the hardware. I realize that the firmware is what controls the hardware and makes it work so well.
In contrast you can read some of the old articles posted shortly after the printer was released and see how bad the networking was and Bambu lab admitting that they did not know enough about network security.
I also listed how well the printer works out of the box for a new to printing customer.
However, Bambu Studio is full of partially implemented features. Locking down network communication in proprietary code and similar choices prevent users from growing the ecosystem to work better for their needs.
As for hacking G-code, you might not need to do it, but many of the experienced 3D printer users want to customize the gcode for various reasons. Adding certain types of filament calibration tests require writing custom G-code, such as what was originally added to Orca Slicer. For me personally, I do not have an AMS and I do not want every print to start with purging a lot of filament. There is no need when filament is changed manually, which does the required purge. I wrote modified the machine start code to work for my needs. That is made available to change in Bambu Studio. I just think the g-code should be documented. There are codes in the stock machine start code that are not standard Marlin codes and without documentation it is hard to tell what they do or if they are necessary for a given situation.
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@lkraus Thanks for the positive comment. You are correct that I had been very busy with another project for several months and was not working on the printer much. It also gets hard to keep up with multiple forums that are very active.
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@3DSAT When you say “Any bambulab user knows that they can use the printer without the need for the Internet” I am not sure that is actually true. But more to the point is that when the first BBL printer was released using it without the cloud was impossible. That was the only way to communicate to the printer. LAN mode was added later and is still not perfect.
If you read some of the oldest threads in the forum you will see post after post of the cloud being down and users not being able to print. (Yes they could use the SD card, but normal functionality did not work.)
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Thanks @Omthetortoise for mentioning the profile update issue. There is no notification about various profiles being updated in Bambu Studio. In addition, the g-code is not stored in the project, but must be regenerated each time the project is opened.
This is a major flaw, because I can print an object perfectly one day and then a month later, after profiles have silently updated, try to print the same object again and have it turn out differently.
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