There are many theories as to why Bambu does and does not include certain features. However, the lack of transparency is one item that sticks in my craw.
Here are some theories addressing some of your points. Of course, Bambu could easily address this directly but their silence is consistent with their marketing practices which have become increasingly opaque over time.
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LAN support why it wasn’t included with the X1C.
I think one possible answer might lie in their consumer business model. Bambu Printers cannot operate in most large enterprises that produce prints where intellectual property is concerned. This is one reason why one will never see an X1 or P1 being allowed to interface to the Internet in engineering companies who wish to safeguard their intellectual property or work on government contracts. Bambu has decided to close off their printers from self support. As an example, standard industry practice is to allow firmware upgrades through some time of secure method such as USB thumbdrive or secure network protocol to a firewalled server. The X1 and P1 cannot be upgraded that way. -
3D printers as tools rather than hobbies, expects LAN support as standard.
Again, in the enterprise space, this is true, but Bambu, through its actions, has shown that they do not intend on supporting anything but the X1E in that space. There is no logical reason for support of Wi-Fi only. Please show me a printer that has only this option. At the very least, they should provide a direct cable approach such as USB like everyone else in the industry. -
Lack of support for the X1E.
My theory is that this is a grand experiment on Bambu’s part. They have zero experience in Channel Marketing and the X1E clearly has ample margin baked into it to allow for the support of a reseller channel. What’s more, that support won’t be coming from Bambu directly which will further strengthen their channel at the cost to the buyer. -
Bambu’s approach of using resellers for support and service agreements due to compliance requirements.
That’s an interesting one. UL is the CSA equivalent in the States, but it has very no regulatory power, it’s up to the local municipality and building codes to provide enforcement regulations, there is no US federal regulation forcing electrical safety compliance. This is quite different in a factory floor or professional office building environment, where building and safety inspectors have greater influence. So, this may be another reason why the X1E is supported through the channel. However, no channel partner in the US will speculate their onw money on the $25K+ expense of getting a third party’s product certified on their own. That would be a bad business move. -
In Canada, printers require CSA compliance, affecting business adoption; Canadian resellers must certify Bambu printers before selling.
Interesting that you say that because there was a thread on that very topic posted last week. -
Lack of online content and detailed reviews for the X1E, unlike other mainstream printers.
Ah ah… now we get to the opaque part of Bambu. This behavior is consistent with all of their other “Walled Garden” behaviors. I’ve spotted a pattern. If a question can save them tech support or sell another printer, they are very transparent on their Wiki page. However, if a question asks for how a function is supported or the underlying logic, there is little support offered to a sophisticated user to support themselves, other than “Send us your logs and we will tell you what you’re doing wrong” rather than being open and allowing the user to understand what’s going on. -
Why the X1E, despite targeting businesses, has limited online information compared to other products.
Again, this makes sense if your both an opaque and secretive company and are trying to build a reseller channel.
Bambu deserves a lot of criticism in this area. Many people don’t fully appreciate that their marketing strategy aims to monetize every aspect of their ecosystem. We’re seeing this clearly for the first time with the landing page of Bambu Studio, where it’s impossible to avoid Makerworld prompts. This strategy is similar to what we see in the so-called “free apps” on cell phone marketplaces. Free is not really free, and I won’t be surprised if we start seeing advertisements before we can use Bambu Studio or if they somehow force Orca Slicer to support Makerworld for continued unfettered access. Doesn’t this sound very much like the PRC, where the state gets to say what you can and cannot do?
We all know this type of self-promotion, where you can’t use the product you paid for (the printer) until you click past the company’s latest promotion. Bambu has been careful about this, but my suspicion is that they are slowly testing how far they can push consumers. We’ve seen this before with other products. For example, cable TV and Amazon Video used to be commercial-free. How long did that last?
One clear sign of Bambu’s strategy is if they ever reduce the functionality of the printer when someone uses Orca. Although I doubt they would take that risk, we’ve already seen them block firmware rollbacks prior to version 1.4, which is needed to interface with Makerworld through the slicer. This also explains why Bambu won’t allow offline firmware updates for consumer models. If we could archive firmware for offline updates, Bambu would lose control. This gradual erosion of product functionality is something we’ve seen everywhere. If they were truly going to support long-term third-party slicers like Orca, they would make the source code for Bambusource.dll available. But this would again allow others to help diagnose the never-ending network and interface problems reported here.