The new auth system is definitely no masterpiece of engineering. It leans more toward locked systems like Stratasys/Ultimaker. If they also lockdown the filament and other supplies they may become a footnote in history to brought Core-XY 3D-printers to the masses and after that they disappeared as some other company with less restrictive and more open ideas was around the block. It may happen, hope it will be possible to print without cloud involved after this in the future.
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I would hope, if it came to that, they would be wise enough to switch back to not being so locked down vs becoming a footnote. Or a hero arises with a way to “unlock it” yourself if possible. I guess it just has to be more profitable for them to not lock it down vs what it means when they do. The money always does the talking lol
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We can hope they sort out a real solution.
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According to the leaked info on H2D, they won’t take the step back, rather press ahead with this so called authentication/security thing. The H2D has no LAN, only cloud, and based on their statements in The Verge, all their new machines will be sold with this (BS) firmware pre-installed. So, in this regard, it’s a deal breaker for me. Others might decide that the benefits of running a H2D will outweigh the loss of the LAN…that is, until Bambu’s cloud falls again, either from an outage, or DDOS attacks, or whatever other unforeseen reason, as many have recently noted, when Bambu’s cloud is down, their print jobs were down as well.
Being completely reliant on someone else’s computer operational status (a machine located someplace on the other side of the world) to be able to print on your printer (located next door), is (in my humble opinion) unwise. But, then again, everyone decides for himself the amount of risk is prepared to take.
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Where do you see that there is no LAN? There’s no ethernet but the FAQ states the following:
It simply requires a USB to print over LAN
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I completely missed this. I guess I assumed that since this was supposed to be a flagship product that it would have every feature of every Bambu Platform which includes the X1E.
I gotta ask, what are these people thinking? They are positioning this as “additive manufacturing”. Riddle me this; what manufacturer will allow a unsecured device in their enterprise? Answer: NONE.
I know none, zero, NADA, products that can coexist in the commercial manufacturing space that require or would allowed unfettered cloud access. Even Microsoft Azure has an on-premise option. This is baffling. Aside from the well-healed 3D printer enthusiast, who would buy such a product?
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Yeah that’s fair, it couldn’t even connect to my work network because it doesn’t support WPA2-Enterprise. It seems like they’re really going for the “prosumer” market, not enterprise with this one. I expect to see the H2E soon for a couple of grand more for places like that.
EDIT 1: I expect the core market to be makers and hobbyists who have been wanting to upgrade and want something they can dump a big chunk of money into and not worry about getting a new printer for a while. That’s my plan at least. I have an excel spreadsheet for my finances and I’ve made a whole loan amortization table to plan the purchase. This is, to me, equivalent to upgrading my computer every 5-6 years or so, except I shouldn’t see the degradation in performance you see when playing new games on old hardware. It’ll be my workhorse for the next decade if I’m lucky. I don’t see this as something you buy 6 of for a print farm. Maybe you get one for special applications
EDIT 2: What I expect: Release the big one for a high cost, get the impulsive people and the big upgraders, then once that dies down release the next, cheaper model, get more impulsive people and people going “Oh wow it’s $1200 less than the H2D!”, wait a bit, then release the mass device (currently the A1/Mini) at a price others can’t really compete at with one or two new technologies to keep it fresh. Wait a couple years and then repeat the process
I know, it’s also where my info comes from, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to glean from this?
It does state that it has wi-fi for a wireless network. Not sure where the “USB” statement by them fits in. My P1S doesn’t have USB that I have found, but I can print across my “LAN”, well, send the file to the micro card and the printer will start printing.
Me neither.
Exactly what @Olias has stated above.
Wifi only does not mean no LAN. You’re still on your Local Area Network if you’re on wifi. If you’re thinking of WAN, that’s Wide Area Network, not Wireless.
We’re talking about the H2D with regards to the USB, not the P1S
Which I literally agreed with? So what’s the point of showing me the info I already know?
As I said above:
I understand that, I am responding to the statement that no USB means no LAN. This id the H2D
Wi-Fi Transmitter Power (EIRP)
2.4 GHz: <23 dBm (FCC); <20 dBm (CE/SRRC/MIC)
5 GHz Band1/2: <23 dBm (FCC/CE/SRRC/MIC)
5 GHz Band3: <30 dBm (CE); <24 dBm (FCC)
5 GHz Band4: <23 dBm (FCC/SRRC); <14 dBm (CE)
Wi-Fi Protocol IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n
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No USB means no LAN printing on the H2D. This was part of the leaked FAQ in the following post:
Not sure what the wifi specs have to do with their software restrictions/hardware limitations
I see that they are using USB to indicate external card/storage slot.
I also find these 2 statements conficting.
So are they just throwing out fun facts or are they saying the internal storage is USB connected (and potentially moddable) ?
It really seems to me that there is a lot of potential mis-info here. It reads like to see any logs for troubleshooting they will need direct access to the printer and I don’t see that happening outside PRC.
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What do you mean? You would enable logging, do a print or whatever, then take the USB out of the printer and over to your computer and pull the logs from it. What is conflicting there? You need a USB drive made within the last 25 years and the printer can only accept a single drive. It’s pretty clear to me.
If you’re talking about “Log files cannot be exported.”, that is the function that is not operational without a USB, as we do not have access to the internal storage
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It sounds like the USB is just replacing the existing function of an SD card.
And I guess the “no printing via LAN” means no LAN mode. Not shocked at all though. This thing is basically a downgrade as far as connectivity options. So this is probably what they want to do with their existing lineup - revoke LAN mode entirely.
^ WRONG ! ^
Why you would want to be obligated to provide and pay for a free cloud service, I have no idea. What kind of business throws away money like that?
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I really do not understand how people are getting that from reading this. It’s very clear that those features are disabled UNLESS you insert a USB drive into that printer so it has the extra storage.
If you want to use LAN mode, dig through your desk drawer, find that old flash drive you still have from high school for some reason, format it as exFAT, and shove it into the printer’s USB port. Congrats, now you can use LAN mode.
Why is this replacing the tried and true SD card? No idea, doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s pretty clear that the listed features are only unavailable if a USB drive is not inserted in the machine
I don’t think you mean what you just said or perhaps you haven’t experience LAN mode. LAN mode is direct transmission over Ethernet the GCode files right into the printer’s SD card and then sending commands over the same network directly to the controller to commence print. What you describing with copying onto USB and walking the files over to the printer is at best slang for “Sneaker Net”.
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