"Relies on cloud access" should be a required warning label like the cancer warnings on cigarettes.
this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
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It doesn't "rely" on jack shit. It "arbitrarily requires cloud access."
You can easily disable cloud access though, unless I misunderstood the comment.
Bambu wants to be a walled garden, don't defend their bullshit
Try reading my comment again.
Unlike other printers, Bambu Lab machines rely on cloud access to support their advanced features like remote monitoring and reading the filament in the AMS. In fact, it wouldn’t be until three months [after launching their first printer], in March 2025, that a Bambu Lab printer would have a USB drive to facilitate moving print files without the internet.
For just this alone, Bambu Labs should be made insolvent.
Then we get to the story here, threatening a lawsuit for reverse engineering a piece of copyleft software.
Fuck Bambu Labs.
Reverse engineering proprietary software isn't necessarily illegal. From the 9th circuit court decision in "Oracle v Accolade" (2021):
We conclude that where disassembly is the only way to gain access to the ideas and functional elements embodied in a copyrighted computer program and where there is a legitimate reason for seeking such access, disassembly is a fair use of the copyrighted work, as a matter of law.
Disclaimers:
- IANAL.
- A prohibition on reverse engineering can certainly be included in an EULA, so in some cases, reverse engineering a piece of software can constitute breach of contract.
Bambu Labs is openly hostile towards the 3D-printing community. I am surprised people let it come this far and didn't immediately shun this company the moment they first locked down their printers.
I think they only got away with it because they managed to produce a product at a low price that out performs almost everything in print quality and speed. If they were at the same speed and quality as everyone else they would have flopped immediately with their lack of open source respect.
out performs almost everything in print quality and speed.
according to every cunt on YouTube who got paid to review one. Props to Bambu for understanding how to market bullshit to 3D printer customers.
As these 3D printer laws trickle in, you soon will have every print scanned on Bambu's server to prevent you from printing repro parts or copyright models.
according to every cunt on YouTube who got paid to review one. Props to Bambu for understanding how to market bullshit to 3D printer customers.
Speaking from over a dedcade of 3D printing experience, this is kind of a ridiculous point.
Bambu's printers are easier to set up out of the box than most other brands, tend to have less ongoing troubleshooting, has a more clean and easily accessible mobile app, and the print quality is also just better in some instances. Plus, their cost is incredible.
My first 3D printer was an easy to set up out of the box, no tinkering required, and it had horrible print quality, could only use one color at a time, and the bed adhesion was awful. I upgraded to a Creality printer, and it promptly permanently scratched the glass bed, and refused to ever level properly even with the addition of an auto-leveling module made by Creality themselves. (then made a squeaking noise I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to solve)
I got an A1 Mini, and while it has had its problems with various different troubleshooting steps I've had to do, most of the troubleshooting was either costless, covered under warranty, or cheap relative to the cost of replacement parts for a similar fix on other printers. The print quality is flawless, it's cheap, it can switch colors, it supports basically every material of filament easily with no tinkering, the nozzle is incredibly easy to switch, and the bed adhesion is way better.
That's not to say other brands don't have better offerings now, but I think it's kind of ridiculous to claim Bambu's printers are bad. They're cheap, reliable, easily accessible to newbies, and produce good quality prints at the same time.
Thats fair. I have never used one of their printers. But I have seen prints from them and they are impressive considering the people showing them to me had just started printing and did nothing to dial in anything.
There were fast printers before Bambu with minimal setup. I have two delta printers that just work every day.
They should be shunned for their latest model, which advertises two extruders, but the second extruder uses a Bowden tube. Why- so they can sell an upgraded model in 6 months. Bullshit like this is why people dumped Creality.
After all week of seeing editorialized headlines I couldn't believe how [the stuff described in] thr article kept getting worse. If I'm getting this right, they sent a C&D over literal open source (not just source available, GPL) repo being forked??!
I like the X1C I have because it's good hardware but I hate where they are going. If they behaved like this back when I bought it I would have just gone to another company. Shame, the hardware is great.
Sucks. I immediately blocked mine from accessing the internet to stop any updates when they started being shady.
The printer was a great entryway into the hobby but definitely will be looking at other brands if I ever need to buy something new.
I hope people forked it
I hope that it'll push at least some people away from bambulab.
This too, but for the machines already out there
If people at least in the diy community would stop recommending them it would be a win in my eyes.
I couldn't agree more. We should never recommend anything that locked down to begin with.
The quality/price of Bambu always stopped me from getting a 3D printer. Meaning - it was the best product at the best price point but I couldn't justify the walled garden. The competitors at the time were more expensive and not as good.
But that was a few years ago. What's the scene like now? Is there a comparable product to Bambu's X1 carbon (or whatever the current model is)
There are a lot of printers today that do better or similar, depending on what type of filament you are planning to print with, bambu really shine(d) (don't know about current generation) with pla especially with their own branded one. I'm currently enjoying small farm of elegoo centauri carbons, they have their own issues but print quality is similar or better to x1 or p1 when it comes to petg and nylon. For multi color there is snapmaker u1.
Ooh now we're talkin, that centauri carbon 2 bundle is about the same as the Bambu X2D base model
What are the issues with it? I see that they fully embraced open source 2 years ago
Dunno about cc2 (also I believe that it's at least 20%-30% cheaper then x2d without ams), but CC had a few software problems that they were very slow to fix. Nozzle change procedure isn't great, usb cable of the first few revisions were shitty. Current CC1 machines are good.
They aren't opensource, like at all, there is opencentauri project that only recently started to ship klipper for cc (first one).
Upd: apparently CC2 is fully open
Snapmaker U1, uses multiple toolheads for multicolor or multimaterial printing without the massive waste generated from filament switching designs like BAMBU.
Ooh that looks awesome! But I'm kinda in the same boat as before, this thing's 40% more expensive than the X2D :(
Depends on application. In my lab, these printers quickly pay for themselves. Scientific plastic is ridiculously expensive.
It'd be pure hobby use for me, nothing critical. I'm leaning toward the CC2 someone posted but I'll have to do some digging to make sure I'm not shooting myself in the foot. Fully open source is a huge selling point for me
Wish i kmew of this before it was pulled, oh well