I can confirm Third Party Firmware is still possible if you can downgrade to the 1.06.XX.XX firmware. X1Plus installed without incident over my LAN and I feel like I just dodged a bullet. The VNC connection in X1 Plus is a game changer for me.
To my fellow X1 users, consider this upgrade before it’s too late. There’s no guarantee Bambu Labs will continue allowing this upgrade, so the sooner you make the move, the better.
To Bambu Labs, this should be a learning opportunity for you. You’ve made a mess and now you have to clean it up. The only good path for you from here forward is to completely open source your firmware and let us, the 3D printing community, make your printers better than even you dreamed they could be.
I think this is best video I have seen about this situation. But I also am a developer and everything he says in this video makes complete sense to me. He comes to conclusions that explain quite a bit of what is going on.
And if what he says is true, this “security” is going to be hacked so fast it might as well not even exist…
your latest blogpost of ‘this is not what we meant’ did not put me at ease. I disconnected my printer and am now walking back and forth with a little SD-cart, hoping I can prevent a forced firmware update this way.
But if the dust settles and all becomes clear… can I still re-connect my printer? Or will I need to update before I can reconnect it? What will happen to my machine?
I loved the fact I could send prints from my laptop and keeping an eye on it, all from the comfort of my chair. But what are your intentions? You say you want to protect us, but if the beta has already been hacked (as far as I understood)… how much safer is the update?
And I also know you will not read the feedback. Because if you would’ve, the new blog post would have been a lot more assuring.
I’m not a developer; I don’t understand half of what the people here talk about. I just want to sit in my chair, press print, look at it being built and pick up my print when it’s done.
That’s not going to happen, although, to quote MLK, “we all have a dream” (problem being that not everyone dreams the same dream). So the only thing we might get from Bambu (eventually) would be a firmware update making LAN mode fully operational…and not just an afterthought like it’s now.
I love that term. I also agree with you. Enshittification or erosion of quality and features is the modern equivalent of corporate tyranny and can only survive if apathy is allowed to flourish.
Dr. Tao, what were you thinking?
Even in his own blog post, he acknowledged that his customer base is DIY-minded—yet he completely miscalculated in this latest move.
This feels like a “boil the frog” moment, except the frog just realized it’s being cooked. The real question is which ethos will prevail: the DIY tinkerers or the complacent users who accept whatever they’re given.
There’s also the negative halo effect—if Bambu damages its reputation before solidifying its fanbase, the same “sheeple effect” will work against them. Sheeple do not want to be associated with a brand that has a stigma or a negative aura. Just ask the makers of Bud Lite. Most people really aren’t that picky about their “everyday beer” but once there was controversy, few people wanted to be “seen” holding that brand in their hands because of the stigma. That’s the “negative aura” affect I speak of.
There’s a significant differences:
1/ they wont be princed the same (think shipping, customs, VAT, etc)… the 2nd hand costs exactly what is charged
2/new one comes within highly disputable firmware with Connect bloatware pre-installed (and among other things, with no more seamless working 3rd party stuff and no more functional mods). Also, despite being stated otherwise by Tao in his reply, the new firmware was built to not allow downgrading to previous version. (On that it might seem that under community+media pressure, Tao might have backtracked a bit).
3/The 2nd hand one comes with (most likely) additional "goodies " + spares, a relatively stable firmware version predating the current one, allowing for 3rd party integration, posing no real issues in operation and being “battle tested”.
According to both articles on their blogposts as well as in the answers given by their PR in the Verge article, the new (beta) firmware will become operational and de facto firmware that will be pre-installed on the new machines, whether we agree with this or not.
My favorite part was them not being able to guarantee they wont lock them down to only being able to use bambu filaments in the future. That would be my personal limit. Makes sense why they havnt opened up rfid in any way. Although that may change with being able to make them on android for the k2 plus. Guess it depends on how well they sell and which way the wind blows.
This is about to be the new #1 advertising point. This looks like some cool software btw /
And there’s the contradiction, isn’t it? On one hand, we’re told “No harm, no foul—just don’t upgrade your firmware.” On the other, the unspoken reality is “If you’ve invested in our ecosystem, don’t expect support in future products.”
What if I was one of those who bet heavily on the implied promise of this platform? Now I’m cut off, sitting on thousands of dollars in printer farm infrastructure with no clear path forward.
In the automotive industry, many US states require manufacturers to support spare parts for at least 10 years after a car’s last sale as a protection against forced obsolescence. This standard became so widespread that, despite no national mandate, automakers have followed it for decades. In the 3D printing world, Prusa has led the way in evergreen support, even though users voluntarily upgraded their machines over time. Their approach was organic—Prusa never needed to force obsolescence.
Bambu, on the other hand, took the “gun-to-the-head” approach—and that’s where they screwed up. Instead of quietly phasing out Bambusource.dll in favor of Bambu Connect, they dared the community to challenge them. They didn’t ease users into it; they made a bold, in-your-face move.
it’s Enshittification of services, i was waiting for the P2 or X2 series but not now, will just overpay for Prusa or Creality with open software, just don’t do this BS with MY hardware, i bought couple of your printers for my farm, and they are great, some are running LAN only mode and some cloud, but from now on it is LAN only mode and not buying anything from you, you’r just doing the DJII bs all over again.
I don’t think Bambu will bulge more than they’ve already did (which, tbh, isn’t much, just promises,
no supporting actions), but instead of throwing
meaningless (from Bambu’s perspective) threats of “selling”, or “no longer buying” Bambu related stuff, just do it!. Talk with your wallet!. That will definitely send the strongest message that Bambu won’t be able to ignore anymore. My 1 cent.
Frankly, I don’t run 3D printing as a commercial enterprise so I’m not really that bothered about their future products - I just won’t be buying them. The switch for me will be easy as I never really invested in the ecosystem in the first place - I do think that MakerWorld is quite decently executed and if I had interest to share or even commercially run prints I probably would end up using it as one of the venues, but you could, theoretically, do that without a BL printer anyway.
The problem is with existing products - a part of the deal is also x years of support and updates. If you decide to stay on the current firmware, you won’t get any of that, and if you were to ask for support during the warranty period, their customer support will insist you update your printer to the latest version before taking your complaint. And if you upgrade your firmware, you lose the original promise of the product which you might have taken in consideration when buying it. I, for one, did extensive research on whether I can or cannot run my BL printers the way I want them - i.e. completely severed from the BL cloud and infrastructure - and only when I was certain that I can, I spent my money on them. If that wasn’t a part of the deal, I wouldn’t have jumped on the BL train in the first place (nor would I consecutively recommend them to quite a number of people).
Since we heard from BL several times that they want to be the 3D printing equivalent of the company that has a bitten apple for a logo - here is an equivalent. The only product from that company that I use are their AirPods Pro earbuds - they are great earbuds, work well with my ears and you can totally use them outside of their ecosystem. Yes, you lose some benefits which are not important to me, but otherwise, as standalone earbuds they happily work with Android/GrapheneOS, Linux and Windows which are the systems I use them with. Now imagine what would happen if they all of the sudden announce that with the next firmware update the AirPods will stop working with ‘regular’ BT and will be able to work only with other products from their ecosystem - you’re free to continue to use them without updating their firmware, but if you want continued support, bug fixes and the likes, you need to update the firmware to this new, restrictive version. Whoever is wondering why is all this drama happening in the BL world (and why I spent a considerable chunk of my vacation explaining why this is a horrible move on BL part) needs to imagine the uproar that would happen in the aforementioned scenario and they’ll easily understand the drama here as well.
You think that sneakily introducing such restriction would bode better for them? Press F to doubt.
They’ve already did it, two times that i know of (once after they got “hit” with the release of X1Plus, the other now) and has been always done in a sneakily manner and invoking a false narrative. There might be more than 2, but I’m
only aware of these 2. My point being that there are already precedents of Bambu acting in bad faith towards their customers, and no matter how Bambu wants to turn it around and twist the narrative, they can’t neither deny what they’ve did and the manner in which they did it, nor could they be ever able to demonstrate to their users that everything was done for the user’s benefit and protection. So, from where I stand, Bambu not only lost any bit of credibility they previously had, but now they managed to completely lose whatever level of trust they had. This latest firmware stunt they’ve pulled on us has proven beyond any leftover doubts to the contrary, that Bambu has turned (to the dark side, if you’ll allow me this analogy) out to be the enemy. Yeah, one could say I’m overinflating and making a drama out of nothing, but give Bambu a bit of more time to put in practice what it’s really after, and then even the most gullible fanboys will have to concede to the fact, once they’ll discover how hard those sneaky changes will affect them (printer use wise and/or wallet wise).
Most people really aren’t that picky about their “everyday beer” but once there was controversy, few people wanted to be “seen” holding that brand in their hands because of the stigma. That’s the “negative aura” affect I speak of.
