I just bought an X1C, and I live in housing that uses captive portal networks. (I think that’s what it’s called). My workplace and college also use these networks.
The type of Wi-Fi network that many hotels, workplaces, colleges, airports, and other public places use is known as a captive portal or guest network. These networks are open networks that do not require a password to connect, but when you try to access the internet, you are redirected to a web page that requires you to enter a username and password, agree to terms and conditions, or complete some other form of authentication.
You should be able to bypass this issue by just connecting to the network, then using the printer’s IP address on an already connected device and going from there. For some reason, this doesn’t seem to work with the X1C. Both my housing and workplace use networks like this, so there is no way to use the X1C’s network functionality, which has many features since everything is cloud-based.
I’ve looked at a lot of posts, and so far, there are no solutions for this beyond using a hotspot. Maybe Im missing something.
I would like to see a firmware update that adds the ability to access the webpage and log in with credentials to my network. This is a big issue for anyone using this type of printer in a work environment with this type of wifi.
Normally I could just modify my printer firmware myself but not here.
If anyone has a workaround or if Bambu Lab could integrate this feature, it would be much appreciated. Otherwise i really cant use this printer in the way i wanted. I have cheaper printers that didn’t have this issue.
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Most captive portals do not match only IPs, but also match mac addresses of the devices connected. And the mac address from your printer will differ from that of the other device you have used to bypass the captive portal.
The only way to solve this would be to have a router/hotspot connecting to the the wifi network and using that to bridge the connection of the printer to the wifi. Or talk to the provider of the wifi, they can usually add mac addresses to a whitelist if they feel generous.
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Thanks for the reply I didn’t know that about the mac address. I’ve actually tried both options. At least in my housing additional routers are not allowed. As for the provider, there’s no help there.
Maybe it’s possible to use a mobile router / access point to connect the printer to a 4G/5G network. So you don’t need to use the local wifi.
Hi, I have a similar issue at a school division. We have an open network (no password) for whitelisted devices only, but adding the MACs on a whitelist doesn’t work. Our IT has determined that the printer wants a password and will not fully auth without one. It will connect and get an ip, but they cannot communicate (cannot be pinged). Basically, the behaviour is like a captive portal. We have 30 A1 and A1 minis, and not one will connect. If we add them to a network that has a password–no issues, but we do not want to share it (school division is large)
Welcome to the forum.
Have you considered using a wifi extender to bridge the gap between the network with no password and a network solely for the printers with a password?
Thanks. Given we are a school division and the printers are across 10, and the locations change within the schools, adding hardware is not going to work for us. We were hoping for a firmware change that would allow open network, but it may mean creating a separate SSID just for the printers.