It's maddening that quite a few people are jumping to defend Bambu here.
Principally if you sell a device with a certain functionality and you later modify that device later to remove that functionality that is called theft. It does not matter the slightest bit whether you break into someone's house to physically alter the device or whether you remotely install a malicious software update to do that.
But what's even more insane here is that some people are claiming that BambooLabs would somehow have the right to do this, because while BambooLab might not have the right to limit the hardware they already sold (which they did and these people just pretend did not happen) they have the right to limit their printer client software under the license conditions they impose on it from the beginning, when their printer client is literally a modification of AGPL licensed software. The entire point of the GPL is to prevent people like BambooLabs from doing exactly this. The AGPL is literally the single license with the most restrictions on BambooLabs to ensure that the users of the software — the customers — do not have any restrictions in what they can do with it.
Some people are seeing this situation and just decide to side with the company against their customers on imposing restrictions on an already sold product after the sale and they are literally making shit up to justify it.
Edit: For people who do not know what this is about: Someone modified AGPL software to reenable features of these 3D printers that BambooLabs stole after the sale and BambooLabs sent a legal threat to them to stop distributing the software.
> later modify that device later to remove that functionality that is called theft.
I've always been told it's called business. But I fully agree with you. Just wanted to note that this is the current business model both with hardware and software
This is why the fight/loss for open computing is so important.
Without the ability to run your own code, this will be everywhere and everything.
Without some counter force of open source pushing back and offering alternatives, we'll be putting tokens in a machine to check your email. Reading email will cost 4 tokens and you'll only be able to buy them in groups of 7.
I always put printers (2d and 3d) behind a firewall so they cannot reach the internet. This prevents auto-updates and surprises like disappearing functionality.
that's what I had in my mind - I want to switch back to HP printer because the Brother I bought has inferior picture printing quality, but I am scared of any software update, so I guess I'll connect it to old linux machine and serve via CUPS
If you don't care about ink quality, then aftermarket ink is fine.
However, if you want your pictures to last 10+ years under the sun, or being able to read what you have printed after some time, getting the genuine ink is the way.
This looks to be a clone of the prior state of the repository that caused all the Bambu drama earlier this week.
I did a ton of research because I didn't understand what people wanted here, and this is what's going on:
Right now, Bambu have adjusted their system into two modalities:
* "default" or "Cloud" mode, where you get an app, remote monitoring, but you have to use Bambu Studio or Bambu Connect to send prints. They implemented this by adding cloud auth to their "internal API;" the client application has to get a token from Bambu's servers, even if the request it eventually makes is a "local" one.
* LAN / Developer mode, where the device displays a token and you put it into your app. This disables all of the remote monitoring but in exchange, clients can send prints locally.
What users want is to "have their cake and eat it too;" they want the local token authentication _and_ the cloud authentication enabled at the same time. This isn't actually possible, so this plugin approximates it by emulating the interface to the cloud authentication to make the "Bambu Network" cloud RPC calls from a local slicer (one of these calls is a local_print call, so ostensibly this allows you to send prints without running them through the cloud, although with all of the online functionality still enabled and required, this seems like a pretty brave thing to trust).
Personally, I find the Bambu reaction distasteful, and there's an argument that the offline mode only exists due to similar outrage, but I don't see the current system as particularly bad and find the appetite to restore "untrustworthy" cloud functionality a bit amusing.
All of their issues are self-inflicted. What benefit is there to their cloud backend except getting around the home NAT? If you want to build your IoT product privacy-friendly, your cloud offering can be reduced to a STUN/rendezvous server and a proxy server as fallback [1]. Ship your devices with individual tokens to rate limit the proxy, have the STUN/rendezvous/proxy server address configurable and publish their source code for users to not be dependent on your continuous operation.
You can even go so far and have a public sub domain for each devices ( serialnumber.manufacturer.com ) which you only operate as a dumb proxy so that even the TLS certificates are negotiated end-to-end between the IoT device and Let's Encrypt. (The devices connect to your backend via Wireguard and you rate limit with their device individual key, whose public key you read out during the end-of-line production step.)
Hell, with today's browser heavy applications you can even run the whole slicer in the browser. Let the app be distributed via CDN so the code does not need to go through the proxy.
[1] In the case of non-battery operated and always or mostly on devices, like 3d printers at least.
I dont understand what the issue is. Theres not really any benefit in having cloud enabled if local is working fine. I have my bambu printer set to local only, and dont miss the cloud offer one bit.
I imagine some (many?) people just enjoy accessing their printer over the mobile phone without setting up VPN, even if said mobile phone isn't on the home wifi.
They have no rights to prevent people modifying and using AGPL software however they want.
They should have no rights to control how people use hardware they bought. ToS for hardware should simply be unenforceable.
People should have full rights to adversarial interoperability, even if it means modifying proprietary software or hardware.
It always surprises me when people (on this site particularly) are more interested in the law as it stands than how things could or should be.
I wonder whether tech has become so exploitative partly because so many of us have lost track of (or never understood) how important civil disobedience has always been in the process of democracy and securing our rights.
As an individual you really don’t have to follow the terms of service! You certainly don’t have to support the [ab]use of ToS, DRM and related tech to screw you at every opportunity!
> They have no rights to prevent people modifying and using AGPL software however they want.
AGPL software can be used and modified within the limits of what the AGPL permits. People can do that with their Bambu software running on their own hardware.
That does not extend to using their proprietary BambuNetwork cloud service (somebody else's computer). The AGPL specifically mentions this scenario in section 6. There are open source alternatives to that like the third-party Bambu-Farm and bambuddy that people can self host instead.
Interestingly, Bambu's own initial approach to the AGPL was more in line with "modifying and using AGPL software however they want" (and potentially violating their section 6 obligations), until customer backlash forced them to adhere to the terms of the licence.
> many prefer to break their license agreement because They Really Want It
By "many" do you mean Bambu Lab themselves who are violating the AGPL license of Prusa slicer & predecessors with their non-AGPL, proprietary networking plugin?
They're choosing to violate the license because they don't think anyone will actually dare to sue them, and they're probably right. Ascribing some sort of moral righteousness to Bambu's actions and accusing users of breaking their license is hysterical.
That's a highly creative interpretation of events. The software license agreement usually upfront covers what can or cannot not change. It is pretty rare in most countries to see successful legal action for changed features, but best of luck.
They will just fine them into oblivion; they are known to fine companies AUD10M to AUD50M for this sort of thing, and from 1st April this year they can now fine up to AUD100M.
Will this mean that Bambu will withdraw from the Australian market? Possibly maybe probably, but the ACCC takes a very hard stance against bait and switch.
It's a whole lot better than the US, but AUD100M isn't enough to scare a lot of companies. A law with real teeth would go after an increasing percentage of their revenue for each offense.
The largest ACCC fine to date for a company undertaking anti consumer practices is $483m against an educational provider for misleading students.
I'd be reasonably happy to lodge a complaint if I could find a version that's reasonably articulated. As a Bambu customer in Australia I switched my printer to local mode and its been great.
Taking functionality away from a product after you bought it is a scum move. If the law lets them get away with it, the law should be changed.
When I buy a product, I look at reviews and make my purchasing decision on the features and functionality at the time of sale. If a software update later ruins that, I want the option to get my money back.
No, it’s not creative at all, it’s what happened — I have first hand experience to corroborate this.
Regardless, at least in the US, not only are software-based ToS becoming unenforceable, but there’s a large upswing towards “right to repair” legislation, which, I think, is what you’re arguing against here… and I really think you’re going to be on the wrong side of history with your current line of thinking (despite what Bambu Labs does).
No, it is with you -- the legislators are doing "fine" (and, again, are heading in a fine direction wrt RTR and software ToS).
I have no idea why you think copyright violations apply here? You seem to be throwing legal terms around without regard for their actual meaning. It's clear you're here to argue for the sake of argument, but I'd really encourage you to reflect and think about why you're so loyal to a corporate entity instead of your fellow consumers (of which there are many in the parent and sibling comments... hint: you may be on the wrong side).
Just for fun, pretend you bought a propane grill for cooking on Monday. On Tuesday, you cooked some bbq chicken and some corn. Later on Thursday, and without your knowledge or authorization, the grill no longer allowed you to use the propane apparatus for cooking non-meats unless you call a special telephone number and said a magic word whenever the call was answered. As a minimum, I feel, it'd be very confusing because, even though you're doing the exact same thing as Tuesday, the outcome is not the same.
Your freedoms have been restricted by someone else; if you are okay with that, then have fun licking boots. The rest of us will still be here advocating for your freedoms.
The "agreement" is at best coerced, and under blackmail of hardware you bought and paid for.
At worst, its a fraudulent indefinite rental masquerading as a 'sale'.
And lets discuss 'updates that fuck over your hardware'. In dwcent countries, thats hacking, and a serious criminal charge. But lol, companies are somehow exempt.
Maybe legally, but morally “you have permanent physical access to this but don’t ’own’ it” and anti-circumvention are debatable.
There’s a small benefit of anti-circumvention where businesses sell hardware for cheaper with restrictions and a TOS that prevents bypassing them. But even that doesn’t apply here because Bambu changed the software after purchase.
This reminds me of RMS and GPLv3. Now I personally don't use GPLv3, but this here is literally a case-in-point, and it is not even only limited to the "cloud-only". Because this now includes a company threatening to sue a developer. If they sue one developer, they, by proxy, sue all of them in principle. So RMS was kind of right.
> If you want to use Bambu's software against their TOS
How does the TOS get involved here? I don't use their TOS. Why would or should they be able to enforce it? Note that it also depends on the jurisdiction. For instance, Microsoft's EULA never had any legal bearings in the EU.
> it's their right to enact that restriction on their software
The issue here is less "they put in a restriction" and more "they are trying to bankrupt/imprison consumers for daring to modify the property they purchased."
> Bambu is trying to bankrupt/imprison their customers? Big if true!
I could interpret this three ways:
1. It's a reflexive double-down "nuh uh" denial, with no deeper cause.
2. You jumped in without knowing the risks that people (regular non-rich ones, anyway) face from lawsuits or CFAA charges, and you assumed the OrcaSlicer maintainer abandoned their project just to be polite.
3. You're whining that Bambu lawyers were "forced" to make disproportionate threats with nonsense logic. (Which isn't a huge step up, because it means they're still telling threatening lies for their own benefit.)
Have they threatened financial pressure? The answer to this question is: yes.
Legal representation typically has a cost associated to the individual,
unless you have the state put down a lawyer for you. You could
assume that bankrupting may not be the primary goal by Bambu Lab, but it
most assuredly can be an associated outcome, in particular if your
income is comparatively low. I don't think sarcasm is appropriate
here.
Great: very few people care enough to actually try to understand! This is very much appreciated.
> What users want is to "have their cake and eat it too;" they want the local token authentication _and_ the cloud authentication enabled at the same time
No.
What I want is to use any slicer software (specifically OrcaSlicer, which is really good) with Bambu printers without losing functionality.
What most people who do not use 3d printing regularly do not understand is that there is more to 3d printing than just throwing a sliced file over the wall. For example, before I slice, I sync information from the printer so that the list of filaments I have in the slicer reflects what is actually in the printer. This sounds silly to people who imagine a printer with a single spool of filament loaded, but when you have multiple printers, each one with an AMS unit housing 4 spools, this becomes essential.
Please also remember that many people have printers in remote locations (workshop). "LAN mode" is a non-starter unless you set up a VPN.
I also want to monitor my prints using my phone, which is what Bambu Lab sold me: it is part of the functionality of the printer. I do not want to lose that functionality.
In other words, "LAN/Developer Mode" is NOT EQUIVALENT to "Cloud" mode (which used to work well with OrcaSlicer until Bambu killed it).
Bambu absolutely could create a system where their printers both communicate with the cloud and local devices, they just don't want to do the difficult software engineering necessary because it is difficult. This is not theoretical either; I work on production devices with hybrid cloud and local functionality. Engineering around a zero-trust threat model (as in you assume the user can and will tamper with the device) is completely doable.
On our Bambu H2D Pro printers at work, we can print in cloud mode and LAN mode at the same time. Bambu literally has this firmware built but they reserve it for “pro” users. The other thing pro users can do is disable cloud without any developer mode stuff. Of course we do this.
Excellent machines by the way, primarily let down by the proprietary binary Bambu forces users to use for LAN mode which is extremely buggy and slow on Linux, and entirely technically unnecessary.
I think the enterprise “LAN Mode” is actually the thing this repo is emulating / replacing, which the consumer printers (might?) also support, where the cloud auth token is still in play but prints are (ostensibly, in a much more difficult to audit way given the client still needs access to the Bambu servers) sent directly to the printer.
Developer mode doesn’t require the proprietary binary.
There's no technical hurdle to achieving both modes or access types (local and cloud) simultaneously. This isn't a technical issue. Selling "Home" and "Pro" devices that are differentiated is also not necessarily a problem, a company is allowed to sell two products with different features and pricing.
There are two problems here. One is when the manufacturer sells something with some capabilities and later pulls the rug from under the users and decides to arbitrarily take some features away. This should entitle any customer to take an arbitrary amount of money back from the manufacturer. The second problem is that after a customer buys the product they aren't allowed to own it. If I buy a hammer I'm, allowed to cut it open, dissect everything, modify the handle or the head. That's ownership, not some shallow dismissal that user want to "have their cake and eat it too".
If someone sells you a cake then follows you down the street to take the frosting and one of the layers back, and tells you that any attempt to restore the cake is a crime, you'd start questioning whether it's really your cake to begin with, and what exactly are you eating.
> This looks to be a clone of the prior state of the repository that caused all the Bambu drama earlier this week.
It looks like it might be a clone, but the git history is squashed for some reason.
I would recommend against installing this unless/until someone can do an audit to figure out which commit it was forked from and what the changes are.
Or better yet, find one of any of the other copies of the repository that don't have their git history squashed.
This looks like someone's attempt to capitalize on the drama to bring attention to their foundation (?) but losing git history is not a good thing for code provenance or security.
There is some context missing, which this video [0] explains.
tl;dr: The original developer does not (or cannot) go into legal battle with Bambu Lab, so Louis Rossmann's project picked up the fight and hosts the (allegedly) troublesome code on their organization. As they have more financial resources, they look forward to the C&D letter.
The point he has (and I agree with that): The original developer is using the un-modified AGPL-code to talk to the cloud API. Bambu Lab states that the modified client pretends to be a Bambu lab client. But in fact, the modified client just uses the code as-is, which is perfectly fine from a AGPL perspective. From my non-lawyer point of view: If Bambu Lab would have made the User Agent a configurable variable, which gets set by some configuration files from outside the code, that get bundled with the binary version, but not the source code, they wouldn't have this leverage.
I'm also trying to get my head around this, as an interested-but-not-directly-involved observer.
> What users want is to "have their cake and eat it too;" they want the local token authentication _and_ the cloud authentication enabled at the same time. This isn't actually possible, so this plugin approximates it by emulating the interface to the cloud authentication to make the "Bambu Network" cloud RPC calls from a local slicer (one of these calls is a local_print call, so ostensibly this allows you to send prints without running them through the cloud, although with all of the online functionality still enabled and required, this seems like a pretty brave thing to trust).
AIUI Bamba has made cloud access all or nothing: you either use local mode, with local slicing, and no cloud feature access at all, or you use cloud mode, with cloud slicing and access to all of the cloud features.
Can anyone explain what the cloud features that people want to retain are? Is it just app control of the printer, and print monitoring? Or are there other things to miss out on?
Being able to push prints and use the printer with direct local connection, while simultaneously having remote monitoring and remote printing when cloud/internet works and is available.
This is not the case of "wanting to have their cake and eat it too", as there is nothing mutually exclusive about these things. It requires no "emulation" or hacks - having a local API open to query state and push print jobs to the queue, while the printer connects to the cloud to publish state and pull the next job, presents no conflict.
Ultimaker has a similar feature set and had full local/cloud simultaneous integration. The only thing you "lost" by pushing a job locally was that when viewed in the cloud portal, the mini 3D model preview in the queue was missing, and only because they never bothered making the cloud solution pull it from the printer for local jobs.
But then they also did like Bambu and killed local printing entirely because they are all enterprise-only now want to sell you their higher Digital Factory subscriptions.
> Being able to push prints and use the printer with direct local connection, while simultaneously having remote monitoring and remote printing when cloud/internet works and is available.
So isn't an obvious approach to just cut Bambu out altogether and just create a FOSS cloud alternative, supporting the remote aspects that the users want to retain?
> This is not the case of "wanting to have their cake and eat it too", as there is nothing mutually exclusive about these things.
Nothing technically mutually exclusive, but isn't this exactly the choice that Bambu is enforcing? Which is crappy corporate enshittification behaviour, but something they can do if they so choose? (I'm not arguing in their favour - just trying to fully clarify the situation.)
I used the spaghetti-detective plugin/add-on for OctoPi when I got my printer, they also hit bandwidth of video streaming over web(part of the "monitoring" area) they seemingly have been absorbed into "obico"(the github remains github.com/TheSpaghettiDetective)
Every 3DPrinter software has options to replace these Bambu Cloud features, the process involves a fair bit of deep dive understanding, flashing firmwares, troubleshooting bugs, and then you could in theory use the same machines with all the Bambu Cloud features, in a local environment.
My only gripe with the community approach is, why not replace them rather than attempt to use ANY servers they have? Jeff cleverly highlighted that all the slicers originate from Slic3r, there is always a point before Bambu.
You're missing two things from the whole picture:
1. Cloud mode works without local network access, so their server is involved in the transit of the data to the printer. This is pretty minor, but still within their rights to preserve.
2. For printing from the app, they actually run the computationally expensive slicing algorithm on their servers, so this is totally reasonable to protect.
Pretty sure you can still print locally either via LAN or just SD card. At least I can on my A1.
The current monetization that they are using is that you can charge for a print on their platform and they take a cut of the sale. If you don’t charge for the design, then it is still free hosting and delivery.
I see where the worry is, but at the moment it seems like people are imagining a worse case scenario.
If you turn on LAN mode, it acts exactly like every other printer. You can print directly to it from any slicer over your LAN, or dump gcode on the SD card directly.
People are saying the LAN mode lacks access to the webcam and possibly some other things. That is what this whole controversy is about. It's re-enabling some cloud features as local only and Bambu is calling it privacy or fraud.
They probably want to establish a commercial-use license. If you have a big print farm, you likely need all of those remote capabilities so you're going to need to pay for the license. The schmucks at home will likely continue to get it for free. Locking them into the cloud API by dangling convenient features just ensures most people won't stray into the local-only mode.
> No, we aren’t being blocked. Turn on LAN mode, pair regular Orca slicer, ignore Bambu for the rest of eternity. Plenty of people have done it.
You're just saying that Bambu users feel the need to purposely circumvent Bambu's artificial restrictions to be able to continue to use Bambu hardware they bought and paid for.
It's a toggle you set in the printer directly, nothing is circumvented. Only the access through their cloud service is impacted, but the printer works locally like any other.
> 2. For printing from the app, they actually run the computationally expensive slicing algorithm on their servers, so this is totally reasonable to protect.
That's an artificial vendor tie-in, and arguably a feature that only involves their client app and their backend. It's understandable if access to their backend is restricted to a subset of their users if that's the business model they wish. Preventing paying customers from using the hardware they bought and paid for by imposing artificial restrictions is not cool.
They've bought a machine that executes gcode and that it does (at least to my understanding) regardless of where that gcode comes from.
If you want special secret sauce gcode from the bambu cloud, you need to use the bambu cloud.
Those are not the same thing, so IMO it is legit what they do there, because it's such a clear-cut split.
You own the physical thing but not the ecosystem around it.
___
I would of course personally never buy a bambu lab printer, because they're cloud-tied nonsense that was going to behave exactly like that (the split between hw and ecosystem), but other people knew that too and still bought it, because "what a nice ecosystem".
idk.
I just don't think that "right to repair" should mean "right to be saved from the consequences of my own bad actions".
Those bad actions continuing to have no real painful consequences (and with that no real learnings + behavioral correction) after all is why the state of tech has become as bleak as it is right now.
And, honestly, if you can afford a bambu premium machine, there's a 97% chance that you could easily shoulder a total write-off.
There's also a 97% chance that your ego can't, but that's the main thing causing all the bad things in the world and should've died a long time ago. Approximately post-highschool.
I wouldn't buy an alternative to a P1S, because only the P1S is the best at being the P1S. (Whatever that might entail)
Instead, I'd look at things from the perspective of "what do I want?" and not "What does the market offer? Okay, I want that thing. But no, I want an alternative to it that is that thing but without downside"
Letting a brand set your frame of reference is the first step into total dependence.
Thanks for your reply. Only used PLA so far. But later I'll need "engineering parts", Nylon/PA12 or something like this. Strong, water and UV resistant, outdoor.
It shouldn't be too complicated and not too expensive. E.g. while the Prusa Core One+ seemed nice (from a superficial look) it costs more than I wanted to spend. P1S came out as the best (barely) adequate printer for what I thought I would need when I looked at it. But it's difficult to say if you are a beginner and basically have no idea...
Yes but what does "equally good job of printing" mean, I wonder.
That's what I meant with "the P1S is the best at being the P1S when measured by the P1S".
I am pretty sure that if you for example do functional PLA parts, there will be many, many more options that tick exactly that box.
I do of course understand that people want to have the mental peace of buying one thing and being told that it can do everything, but, as said, you pay for that emotional labor with lock-in and eventually being rug-pulled.
The only way of not getting rug-pulled is not handing away all of your agency wholesale just for cheap immediate emotional relief.
That's how it works, how it has always worked and how it will always work.
Anyone claiming anything else is in the process of actively scamming you.
Just to confirm so I don't break anything accidentally, I currently have the app version where Bambu Studio is how I send prints to my Bambu P1S and I can look through its camera and see what filament is where and so on, but I also have the token that Home Assistant uses to watch the printer and its camera etc.
This isn't the thing you're talking about. There's a mode where I can send prints directly over the network which disables Bambu Studio, I assume?
Take a step back. What users want is to be able to use the machine they bought the way they want. The outrage is because Bambu are doing a bait-and-switch: selling an autonomous 3D printer, but switching to a 3D printing service. Enshittification pure and simple.
I don't think they baited and switched? I bought my P1S before the whole LAN mode debacle and even then it was all or nothing on the cloud. I just went with the cloud because they were using some IGMP stuff for the local connection, but I had the printer on a separate VLAN and pfsense IGMP proxying was broken.
A different way of looking at it is that Bambu is saying if you want to use their cloud you have to send everything through their cloud. Stupid? Sure. It's very much a technically solvable problem. But I don't think there was any rug pull (this time; in Jan 2025 they tried...)
I think this is all more out of incompetence than malice. Something bad happens, exposing wildly inadequate programming expertise, they panic and over correct, and the community pushes back. They're great at making 3D printers, terrible at cloud infra.
For me, I want to use orca for slicing there are many more additions to the local code. As both orca and Bambo are from the same open source, the current limitation in the Bambo version is breaking the licensing of the application, and my rights in that software are broken by this addition.
Then, during the print, I'm really happy to use the handy app to monitor the progress. This use case was supported when I got the hardware. Now I have to disable the app to get the slicer. I actually like to use both slicers to compare and see progress.
They are also terrible at software licensing, don't understand what open source is, and they found their main software on that. They probably should embrace the orca community and use their research for their own customers. Better slicing helps everyone.
Why should I have to send all my prints to Bambu when the printer is sitting right next to me? Why do I have to choose between being able to stop my printer remotely or Bambu not tracking my every move, when it's trivial to have both?
I don't think so. They can already track popularity very effectively because they control makerworld, and they could have Bambu studio, the app, and the printer phone home too. I don't think they care enough about the tiny tiny minority of users running orca with a LAN only printer.
More likely, it's technical incompetence. It's just easier (for their cloud) to send everything through their cloud
I think OP meant designs which are not on MakerWorld.
And I think technical incompetence is not a reason here otherwise they wouldn't gatekeep the access so much.
Using an AGPL violating mystery meat binary plugin that you run on your host, which potentially compromises any airgap you put around your printer (it attempts to connect to bambu servers, or did last time I checked it) and potentially your entire host.
> (...) I don't see the current system as particularly bad and find the appetite to restore "untrustworthy" cloud functionality a bit amusing.
This is a very dubious opinion to hold. Taking your claim about local mode at face value, there is absolutely no reason to disable monitoring when working on LAN mode. You need to go way out of your way to implement that restriction so that it works differently when the thing phones home or not. You are free to criticize implementation decisions that you feel make it "untrustworthy" but those are trivial to address if you think about it.
I really recommend you to reassess your whole philosophical stance on having corporations prevent you from using what you bought and paid for.
A lot of the distrust toward Bambu is because they originally announced cloud auth would be required even for printing locally in LAN mode, and only backpedalled on that when they saw the backlash.
Critical Operations That Require Authorization
The following printer operations will require authorization controls:
Binding and unbinding the printer.
Initiating remote video access.
Performing firmware upgrades.
Initiating a print job (via LAN or cloud mode).
Controlling motion system, temperature, fans, AMS settings, calibrations, etc.
> I'm not sure why their entire domain has been excluded from archive.org
Because they have a track record of altering their website, gaslighting the community, and then getting caught through archive.org so they simply blocked it, not realizing that other archives exist and then getting caught again.
They tried to alter their warranty terms and got caught. They altered their ToS which would allow them to block prints until the printer firmware was updated. When the community got upset, they not only backpedaled but altered the associated blog post and accused everyone of spreading baseless misinformation because "it's clearly explained in this [edited, backdated] article".
That's precisely the article you linked to. See the original version:
Reminder about the way Ubiquiti does this, as a vendor who wanted to provide users remote access to their own devices behind NAT: Unifi Cloud handles the auth and connection brokerage through a public portal, but you’re then connected straight to your own gear using your web browser (or one of the apps, if you choose). I can even turn all this off if I want to handle the remote access side of it myself.
The important part here is not just printer support, but whether users can keep using hardware they already own without depending on a vendor cloud path.
Local network support tends to look like a convenience feature until it disappears. Then it becomes obvious that it was part of the ownership model.
> whether users can keep using hardware they already own without depending on a vendor cloud path.
That’s a complete misunderstanding of the current state of affairs. Bambu didn’t take away local network support, and you can use any Bambu printer without any cloud or internet connection.
What you can’t do is use a 3rd party slicer with their cloud servers…
Yes they did. Chronology is important because it speaks to their motives. First they blocked Orca slicer and others from connecting to the printer even when the printer is running in LAN-only mode. Due to extensive backlash they later split "LAN mode" into "Standard mode LAN mode" and "Developer mode LAN mode".
The former, officially recommended, "secure" mode would prevent Orca slicer and others from using the printer.
"Developer mode LAN mode" dropped all form of access control (including existing access code + serial number pairing mechanism), leaving users completely exposed - any device on your network, and any process on your machine can freely take control of the printer. They simultaneously absolved themselves of all customer support responsibilities for anyone using this mode.
They also abandoned all work on features and bugs related to LAN mode (whether they affect standard mode or developer mode). Bambu Slicer is plagued by basic connectivity and usability issues that only affect LAN mode, feature parity is not there and there's been quite literally zero activity on any of the issues I've been following.
That’s a vibe coded AI slop website if I’ve ever seen one. It even has a careers page that they didn’t try to edit out.
There’s basically no information there. Is this just a copy of the other GitHub repo that was removed and someone is trying to rebrand it as their own? Or did they do some different work?
From what I gathered from (part of) the video, it's not about the HTML, it's the copy. Basically Google is accidentally/intentionally optimizing for copy that sounds like it came from an LLM or a LinkedIn lunatics post.
I'm skeptical but I don't have time to watch the entire video so I don't want to cast an initial judgement on if he's correct or if it just has to do with his specific copy.
yes, but that is not the problem here. the problem is that google search favors AI slop that makes this the preferred method of webdesign.
there is a huge difference between creating AI slop because i am lazy (which i think most people doing that are) and creating AI slop because otherwise google gives your website a bad rating.
now you and i may not care about google ratings, but many other people do, and the end result will be that all websites that want good ratings will end up being AI slop.
somehow we need to send google a message to stop that.
The Google excuse doesn’t even hold water when you consider that the content of the website is so bad that it’s not even going to register for the relevant search terms. It’s just empty AI slop copy.
What are they even trying to rank for? It doesn’t make sense.
> Vibe coding a slop website drastically increases your bounce rate and reduces trust in your project.
The masses love this. Really! They love their slop like the good little cattle they are. Source: I work in this field with customers, they love the AI-slop corpo-fied website that looks like an app.
"Vibe coding a slop website drastically increases your bounce rate and reduces trust in your project."; but only for a subset of the potential audience.
This is something I learnt early in my start up career, "You are not your customer"; what you value and what your customers value may not be the same.
i think it does. you have to think through the development process here. if we start with the promise that an AI generated site gets more hits, then you'd want to change as little as possible from what the AI generates by hand. yes it's dumb, but the whole premise of generating a website with AI is dumb to begin with.
i'd say that when louis discovered that AI websites work better, it broke him in that regard. the choice is now creating a website that i own, as in "this is mine, i made this". or a website that works with google. but i'd want to distance myself from that website as far as possible. "i didn't make this myself, i needed this for google. i don't want to touch it"
Just make sure never, ever to buy from them again.
It's the same story as Synology with their forced reliance on specific hard drives.
As long as there are still other providers out there...
I considered buying bambu lab A1, bout watching this and previous dramas I rather go with different vendor. Are there any good alternatives for newcomers? I like hacker nature and openness of Prusa, but I’m worried if it is good printer as a first one…
I bought an Elegoo Centauri Carbon late last year and that's been very good so far. Had a minor issue of a sensor disconnecting after a month, but took 10 minutes to fix it (cable had come loose, probably in transit).
It was absurdly cheap for its spec (£260 is what I paid, delivered) and can be run entirely without internet access with no issues. People were a bit miffed when they announced a v2 with multi-filament support, but they just announced an addon to upgrade the first version to a similar spec and it's again really cheap - £55 delivered here in the UK.
If I was printing more professionally I'd probably go for a Prusa, but the cost/benefit isn't there for someone new to it, unless you have plenty of dosh - in which case go for it. As someone getting into it, the price of the Centauri Carbon is so reasonable that it's hard to argue against it.
Prusa printer are really good. Well at least a few month after the first release :D They tend to release banana products that ripe at the customers.
But for example I had some problems with my linear rods, talked to support for just a few minutes and 2 days later I had replacement parts at my door. This was a few years back though.
Also they give firmware updates, and even hardware upgrade for years! This IS really nice and I'm not sure any other printer manufacturer that sells to private people does this.
Yes, your upfront price is a bit higher. I say it's worth it.
I got a second hand Prusa Mk3s about a year ago as my first printer, around 300 € perhaps. I'm still enjoying it a lot, even though I'm now eyeing one of their upcoming (more expensive) models.
I think it depends mostly on how you expect to use it. There may be alternatives that give you perfect prints with minimal fuzz. But for me it was great to have a machine I dare play around with. Like getting a tractor before a race car :)
I've only had one Prusa printer, a MINI+ and it's been an absolute workhorse and easy to repair using the official instructions (I assembled my unit myself and pulled a zip-tie too tight, which caused the part cooling fan cable to break).
You do pay a premium. I, personally, also found PrusaSlicer to have better presets and usability than OrcaSlicer or it's forks.
it honestly depends on your budget. prusa is definitely overpriced for what you get. but, i bought one anyway specifically because of their stance on OSS, and this kind of bullshit the bambu is pulling. even though bambu objectively has a better or at least equal product for significantly less money.
Yeah, overpriced is a big word when the competition is likely not operating sustainable due to subsidies and a lot of investment cash to burn for market capture.
Eg. they are paying random people to host their models exclusively on MakerWorld (where the CCP tells you what's okay to print; try searching for anything 'Jinping'...). They are obviously pouring enormous amounts of cash into marketing on social media, especially YouTube (a lot of large maker channels became full-on advertisement platforms).
Their expenses are evidently enormous. There is no way they are running sustainable. It's a long con.
Wild speculation here obviously, but it could be a regulation play--there's a lot of potential legislation that would regulate what you can legally 3D print, which would warrant a system to be the age-verification equivalent for 3D printing.
If this is the angle then I'm even more suspicious that they're secretly pushing for the legislation so when it goes into effect they'll effectively be the only game in town.
This is admittedly a bit tinfoil hat, but they wouldn't be the first company to attempt to legislate away the competition.
I mean, they would not be the first big corporation to pull exactly this move.
They are also subsidized by the Chinese government and are paying for users exclusively hosting on MakerWorld. Their move is obviously complete market capture, not sustainable finances at this point.
There is a lot of things going on. We can only speculate, but it sure ain't going to benefit end users.
I've wondered the same thing because lately I've noticed a bunch of consumer companies forcing cloud-required models where it's not necessary and many/most users have no need for whatever features cloud connectivity may provide. Yet the companies keep insisting on it even when there's significant user blow back and bad brand PR. When they even bother to comment on "why", the answers never make much sense.
When it's companies based in the U.S. or EU, like Chamberlain / LiftMaster garage door openers, it's pretty obvious they plan to monetize some cloud services subscription for upgraded features beyond the free basic tier as well as probably selling consumer data.
However, the China-based companies like Bambu Lab (and many others) are more puzzling because meaningful ongoing subscription revenue seems unlikely. Especially in the case of lower-end consumer tech peripherals where the companies usually invest as little as possible in their websites, ongoing feature updates or direct end-user support. Which makes no sense if they really aspire to build long-term subscription revenue. Here's my theory: the Chinese government is quietly compelling them to require cloud connections to China-based data centers as a long-term strategy.
I'm not even saying the companies are some direct arm of the Chinese government or planting nefarious firmware. I think that's too likely to be caught if done at mass scale and it's not even necessary. As long as the cloud servers are in Chinese data centers, the Chinese government can get consumer IP addresses and usage data just from passive packet sniffing and if things turn icy with some foreign countries, they can cause a lot of turmoil simply by selectively blocking packets at the firewall to brick millions of consumer devices.
I know it maybe sounds paranoid and, to be clear, I'm not claiming Bambu Labs specifically is doing this. I actually came up with this theory before I ever heard of Bambu Labs because I have a lot of inexpensive Chinese home automation devices and was surprised by their bizarre insistence on forcing cloud connectivity despite there being no apparent business model incentive and these smaller-scale Shenzen hardware companies showing zero enthusiasm for making a real business out of cloud services. Their cloud implementations are almost invariably the bare minimum possible and seem woefully underfunded. After all, for a low-margin hardware peripheral, every dollar spent running a no-revenue cloud after the sale is pure overhead in a business that live or dies by pennies. It's almost like requiring a cloud connection is an export tax the company is paying just to be left alone to sell their hardware overseas.
For home automation gear, cloud-connectivity is a non-starter in my book. In some cases, it's literally built into our walls, so I only buy devices which will work on a local-only subnet or on which I can install open source firmware like Tasmota or ESPHome.
This. No conspiracy tin foil hat bs, just money. Everything got cloud because investor story time, just like everything has AI now, in every talk I have with either my boss, potential partners and clients its: “where is the AI”? (Source: i am in China). There are a couple of other things that other can maybe highlight, like how every one is blocking Chinese IP’s and vice versa, maybe something on the legislative side also? Not sure. Something something malice/incompetence
Probably regulations, there are a few states trying to make it illegal for felons to own 3D printers by EOY. These things are about to get regulated like firearms, which is wild.
Some of the proposed 3d printer laws will require printers being sold to be capable of evaluating what you are using them for and blocking “bad” usages. I’m not aware of any such legislation around firearms.
Presumably the original dev that implemented the changes for this functionality that pulled the repo does not want to be associated so some level of squashing was required but yeah, the whole history was maybe a bit silly.
There are many reasons one might prefer OrcaSlicer over Bambu Studio. One might be perfectly fine using Bambu's cloud services while preferring OrcaSlicer for different reasons; this is for those people.
Others might not want to use Bambu's cloud services at all; OrcaSlicer as it currently exists is fine for them.
there's not enough appeal with the investors and stock holders.
they're going to try to make everything you have a subscription, starting with the homes you might try to buy. they don't even live here, but there's no laws stopping them, because your representatives personally benefit from letting things go for certain corporations/people (the same thing after the Citizens United decision)
I have an Ender3 that I use plugging in a microsd card to do prints with. What am I missing here? Seems like you can do the same with these printers. People want to use the cloud?
Even with an Ender3 many, including myself, would connect it to a raspberryPi with octoprint to be able to send prints over the network. The SD card flow gets very tedious very quickly.
Oh god. OctoPrint, I forgot about that tool. Jesus, I'm still subscribed after all of these years. I do not want to know how much money I have been quietly bleeding for this tool.
The creator has a patreon[1]. I did a one-time payment too because early on it really changed how I used my 3D printer and thought it deserved some support.
I think people like having an option for remote over the network communication. The cloud is not technically required for that. Bambu made it required for no good reason.
Yes, and aside from being able to send and monitor your prints from their mobile app (and there are third party implementation of a similar app), you really don't lose much by using LAN Mode, especially if you pair it with Tailscale.
The mobile app is quite nice.
Print error and print finish notifications. Webcam view when I’m not near my printer. The ability to pause it remotely if something looks off.
I use LAN mode, plus a home assistant plugin to restore the lost functionality. The default webcam is pretty bad so I’ve also mounted a better one to my printer for a live video view that’s at more than 1fps.
The main thing I’ve lost by using lan mode is printing from my phone? I think there are ways to do that. But OrcaSlicer has so many options that are frequently worth adjusting over random presets other creators used; it’s a strictly better experience compared to printing on mobile.
I think there is some niche “cancel printing of one specific object” feature that I dont know how to use without the mobile app. If you are printing many objects at once, and one fails, you can cancel a specific part/object using the mobile app. Not sure how to do that with OrcaSlicer + lan mode, or if it’s even possible. (Edit: OrcaSlicer doesn’t support it. The home assistant plugin might? Bambu studio in lan mode doesn’t support it either, it requires the mobile app)
I can imagine not having to do the “save to sd card, eject, put in printer, fiddle with the printers crappy ui to select the print” flow might be attractive to some. Find the model you want in the web, click “send to printer”, done.
I don’t mind the sd card thing, also happy with my bottom of the barrel ender 3.
At least your use case would be served well by enabling LAN mode, which doesn't let the printer talk to the internet, even if you want it to (and I want mine to).
It was a mistake by BambuLab to piss off and alienate the community. They poked the bear; stung the bee; squashed the frog. This is literally the Barbara Streisand effect in the modern era. Now people are watching. Reputation went out the window already: "If they can sue one of us, they can sue all of us". (Well, threaten to sue at the least, aka applying financial pressure on that developer.)
Good joke if you think more than 1% of their customer base will care about that.
Bambu is not (never has been?) targeting 3D printing hobbyist but everyday people; and for them cost/reliability is more important than running your custom slicer. Until there is a serious competitor that has a polished and cheap printer, Bambu can alienate all of the open source community and still be fine.
Incidentally, almost all color 2D printers insert serial number tracing artifacts, and many 2D scanners and photo editing software prevent manipulation of images containing either EURion constellation circles or Counterfeit Deterrence System patterns. Interestingly, I didn't have a problem downloading, manipulating, or attempting to print currency-detected fragment images on iPadOS 18.x.
If Bambu Lab responds to this criticism with lawyers instead of clear technical answers, it will only make the forced cloud requirement look more suspicious.
To me, this is an obvious security risk. These printers are often used in labs, startups, engineering teams, and potentially even government environments. If print data, models, logs, or usage patterns are routed through a company controlled infrastructure, that creates a real opportunity for corporate espionage or data harvesting.
I would not be surprised if Bambu Lab eventually faces the same level of scrutiny that Huawei network devices did.
I’ve been running mine offline for years, I don’t know why other people haven’t been. They’re the only competent and reliable printer that isn’t a project car in itself, but they’re obviously not completely trustworthy. Easily fixed with an air gap, updates work just great from a USB drive.
Bambuddy and tailscale was my solution to losing access to mobile app once I went lan-only. Has video stream ,monitoring and control. Plus home assistant integration via MQTT. Only thing I’m missing is the ‘AI’ spaghetti monitoring. But those are rare for me.
There's also the Openbu or LanBu android apps if you just want a basic app for monitoring from your phone like Bambu Handy did. Although if you want to access your printer from a remote network you'll still need tailscale or similar.
But when it was online, I never checked the app for failed prints. If the print has failed, I'll find out when I'm near enough to it to do something about it.
When offline, it amused me when there was a "hairball" and the printer detected it advising "AI Detecting Print Error".
At what level does an image analysis algorithm become "AI"?
Yeah I’ve had one, still do, it never gets used because it’s a project car. Compared with one button press and coming back to a print in a few hours, it’s a constant nightmare of debugging, print issues, and manually changing filaments that aren’t stored in an airtight container and get wet. It’s not even competition, as much as I would like to support open source tools the Prusa stuff is an order of magnitude more expensive than a A1 Mini that will make a reliable print every time.
It’s like saying a bicycle is a serious contender to a train, they both have kind of similar things going on but you’d have to be insane to suggest that they do as good of a job as one another at the things people actually want to achieve.
I've done zero debugging on my Prusa and it's been pretty much fire and forget. I had one spaghetti print failure in years on it, and it was my own fault for disabling supports and the print falling over :)
Automatic filament changes would be nice for sure, I look forward to upgrading to one of their new INDX models.
idk, my 10 year old makerbot 2 has been pretty reliable, ever since Prusa slicer came out and I tuned a profile for it maybe 6 years ago it's been spitting out quick dimensionally accurate prints. i use it all the time, probably go through a spool every month or two and all i've had to replace is the cooling fan for the extruder once
i'm mostly printing small mechanical parts and i can't say i have any complaints, i assume a modern prusa would be much better, surely there are other FDM printers that are good?
Principally if you sell a device with a certain functionality and you later modify that device later to remove that functionality that is called theft. It does not matter the slightest bit whether you break into someone's house to physically alter the device or whether you remotely install a malicious software update to do that.
But what's even more insane here is that some people are claiming that BambooLabs would somehow have the right to do this, because while BambooLab might not have the right to limit the hardware they already sold (which they did and these people just pretend did not happen) they have the right to limit their printer client software under the license conditions they impose on it from the beginning, when their printer client is literally a modification of AGPL licensed software. The entire point of the GPL is to prevent people like BambooLabs from doing exactly this. The AGPL is literally the single license with the most restrictions on BambooLabs to ensure that the users of the software — the customers — do not have any restrictions in what they can do with it.
Some people are seeing this situation and just decide to side with the company against their customers on imposing restrictions on an already sold product after the sale and they are literally making shit up to justify it.
Edit: For people who do not know what this is about: Someone modified AGPL software to reenable features of these 3D printers that BambooLabs stole after the sale and BambooLabs sent a legal threat to them to stop distributing the software.
I've always been told it's called business. But I fully agree with you. Just wanted to note that this is the current business model both with hardware and software
Without the ability to run your own code, this will be everywhere and everything.
Without some counter force of open source pushing back and offering alternatives, we'll be putting tokens in a machine to check your email. Reading email will cost 4 tokens and you'll only be able to buy them in groups of 7.
Never buying a cartridge based inkjet printer again.
However, if you want your pictures to last 10+ years under the sun, or being able to read what you have printed after some time, getting the genuine ink is the way.
People think ink is simple. It is not.
I did a ton of research because I didn't understand what people wanted here, and this is what's going on:
Right now, Bambu have adjusted their system into two modalities:
* "default" or "Cloud" mode, where you get an app, remote monitoring, but you have to use Bambu Studio or Bambu Connect to send prints. They implemented this by adding cloud auth to their "internal API;" the client application has to get a token from Bambu's servers, even if the request it eventually makes is a "local" one.
* LAN / Developer mode, where the device displays a token and you put it into your app. This disables all of the remote monitoring but in exchange, clients can send prints locally.
What users want is to "have their cake and eat it too;" they want the local token authentication _and_ the cloud authentication enabled at the same time. This isn't actually possible, so this plugin approximates it by emulating the interface to the cloud authentication to make the "Bambu Network" cloud RPC calls from a local slicer (one of these calls is a local_print call, so ostensibly this allows you to send prints without running them through the cloud, although with all of the online functionality still enabled and required, this seems like a pretty brave thing to trust).
Personally, I find the Bambu reaction distasteful, and there's an argument that the offline mode only exists due to similar outrage, but I don't see the current system as particularly bad and find the appetite to restore "untrustworthy" cloud functionality a bit amusing.
This is only true due to a firmware they pushed last year. It's an artificial limit.
There's no reason at all a local client couldn't just talk to a local printer without any cloud.
Every problem BambuLabs have here is self-inflicted. They could allow simultaneous cloud and local queue management with or without authentication.
You can even go so far and have a public sub domain for each devices ( serialnumber.manufacturer.com ) which you only operate as a dumb proxy so that even the TLS certificates are negotiated end-to-end between the IoT device and Let's Encrypt. (The devices connect to your backend via Wireguard and you rate limit with their device individual key, whose public key you read out during the end-of-line production step.)
Hell, with today's browser heavy applications you can even run the whole slicer in the browser. Let the app be distributed via CDN so the code does not need to go through the proxy.
[1] In the case of non-battery operated and always or mostly on devices, like 3d printers at least.
They should have no rights to control how people use hardware they bought. ToS for hardware should simply be unenforceable.
People should have full rights to adversarial interoperability, even if it means modifying proprietary software or hardware.
It always surprises me when people (on this site particularly) are more interested in the law as it stands than how things could or should be.
I wonder whether tech has become so exploitative partly because so many of us have lost track of (or never understood) how important civil disobedience has always been in the process of democracy and securing our rights.
As an individual you really don’t have to follow the terms of service! You certainly don’t have to support the [ab]use of ToS, DRM and related tech to screw you at every opportunity!
AGPL software can be used and modified within the limits of what the AGPL permits. People can do that with their Bambu software running on their own hardware.
That does not extend to using their proprietary BambuNetwork cloud service (somebody else's computer). The AGPL specifically mentions this scenario in section 6. There are open source alternatives to that like the third-party Bambu-Farm and bambuddy that people can self host instead.
Interestingly, Bambu's own initial approach to the AGPL was more in line with "modifying and using AGPL software however they want" (and potentially violating their section 6 obligations), until customer backlash forced them to adhere to the terms of the licence.
By "many" do you mean Bambu Lab themselves who are violating the AGPL license of Prusa slicer & predecessors with their non-AGPL, proprietary networking plugin?
They're choosing to violate the license because they don't think anyone will actually dare to sue them, and they're probably right. Ascribing some sort of moral righteousness to Bambu's actions and accusing users of breaking their license is hysterical.
By attempting to stop users from using their AGPL code they are behaving illegally.
If you want to use Bambu's software against their TOS, OK you wouldn't be alone in that, but there's no moral high ground in it.
In most countries, that would violate consumer rights. There's an ethics argument here.
Feel free to consult Steam, Google, Meta and others, if a software license is enough to ignore consumer rights.
Will this mean that Bambu will withdraw from the Australian market? Possibly maybe probably, but the ACCC takes a very hard stance against bait and switch.
I'd be reasonably happy to lodge a complaint if I could find a version that's reasonably articulated. As a Bambu customer in Australia I switched my printer to local mode and its been great.
Worth pointing out also that the US is the odd one out, here. Europe also enforces consumer rights.
Yes, it's not as simple as that, but it's not that impossible either.
This kind of firmware update to remotely disable feature is also illegal in the EU
When I buy a product, I look at reviews and make my purchasing decision on the features and functionality at the time of sale. If a software update later ruins that, I want the option to get my money back.
Regardless, at least in the US, not only are software-based ToS becoming unenforceable, but there’s a large upswing towards “right to repair” legislation, which, I think, is what you’re arguing against here… and I really think you’re going to be on the wrong side of history with your current line of thinking (despite what Bambu Labs does).
I have no idea why you think copyright violations apply here? You seem to be throwing legal terms around without regard for their actual meaning. It's clear you're here to argue for the sake of argument, but I'd really encourage you to reflect and think about why you're so loyal to a corporate entity instead of your fellow consumers (of which there are many in the parent and sibling comments... hint: you may be on the wrong side).
Just for fun, pretend you bought a propane grill for cooking on Monday. On Tuesday, you cooked some bbq chicken and some corn. Later on Thursday, and without your knowledge or authorization, the grill no longer allowed you to use the propane apparatus for cooking non-meats unless you call a special telephone number and said a magic word whenever the call was answered. As a minimum, I feel, it'd be very confusing because, even though you're doing the exact same thing as Tuesday, the outcome is not the same.
Your freedoms have been restricted by someone else; if you are okay with that, then have fun licking boots. The rest of us will still be here advocating for your freedoms.
At worst, its a fraudulent indefinite rental masquerading as a 'sale'.
And lets discuss 'updates that fuck over your hardware'. In dwcent countries, thats hacking, and a serious criminal charge. But lol, companies are somehow exempt.
There’s a small benefit of anti-circumvention where businesses sell hardware for cheaper with restrictions and a TOS that prevents bypassing them. But even that doesn’t apply here because Bambu changed the software after purchase.
If so, then yes, the software too
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat...
Nobody is arguing against Bambu's legal right to be arseholes.
> If you want to use Bambu's software against their TOS
How does the TOS get involved here? I don't use their TOS. Why would or should they be able to enforce it? Note that it also depends on the jurisdiction. For instance, Microsoft's EULA never had any legal bearings in the EU.
The issue here is less "they put in a restriction" and more "they are trying to bankrupt/imprison consumers for daring to modify the property they purchased."
I could interpret this three ways:
1. It's a reflexive double-down "nuh uh" denial, with no deeper cause.
2. You jumped in without knowing the risks that people (regular non-rich ones, anyway) face from lawsuits or CFAA charges, and you assumed the OrcaSlicer maintainer abandoned their project just to be polite.
3. You're whining that Bambu lawyers were "forced" to make disproportionate threats with nonsense logic. (Which isn't a huge step up, because it means they're still telling threatening lies for their own benefit.)
Legal representation typically has a cost associated to the individual, unless you have the state put down a lawyer for you. You could assume that bankrupting may not be the primary goal by Bambu Lab, but it most assuredly can be an associated outcome, in particular if your income is comparatively low. I don't think sarcasm is appropriate here.
> I didn't understand what people wanted here
Great: very few people care enough to actually try to understand! This is very much appreciated.
> What users want is to "have their cake and eat it too;" they want the local token authentication _and_ the cloud authentication enabled at the same time
No.
What I want is to use any slicer software (specifically OrcaSlicer, which is really good) with Bambu printers without losing functionality.
What most people who do not use 3d printing regularly do not understand is that there is more to 3d printing than just throwing a sliced file over the wall. For example, before I slice, I sync information from the printer so that the list of filaments I have in the slicer reflects what is actually in the printer. This sounds silly to people who imagine a printer with a single spool of filament loaded, but when you have multiple printers, each one with an AMS unit housing 4 spools, this becomes essential.
Please also remember that many people have printers in remote locations (workshop). "LAN mode" is a non-starter unless you set up a VPN.
I also want to monitor my prints using my phone, which is what Bambu Lab sold me: it is part of the functionality of the printer. I do not want to lose that functionality.
In other words, "LAN/Developer Mode" is NOT EQUIVALENT to "Cloud" mode (which used to work well with OrcaSlicer until Bambu killed it).
Bambu absolutely could create a system where their printers both communicate with the cloud and local devices, they just don't want to do the difficult software engineering necessary because it is difficult. This is not theoretical either; I work on production devices with hybrid cloud and local functionality. Engineering around a zero-trust threat model (as in you assume the user can and will tamper with the device) is completely doable.
Excellent machines by the way, primarily let down by the proprietary binary Bambu forces users to use for LAN mode which is extremely buggy and slow on Linux, and entirely technically unnecessary.
Developer mode doesn’t require the proprietary binary.
There are two problems here. One is when the manufacturer sells something with some capabilities and later pulls the rug from under the users and decides to arbitrarily take some features away. This should entitle any customer to take an arbitrary amount of money back from the manufacturer. The second problem is that after a customer buys the product they aren't allowed to own it. If I buy a hammer I'm, allowed to cut it open, dissect everything, modify the handle or the head. That's ownership, not some shallow dismissal that user want to "have their cake and eat it too".
If someone sells you a cake then follows you down the street to take the frosting and one of the layers back, and tells you that any attempt to restore the cake is a crime, you'd start questioning whether it's really your cake to begin with, and what exactly are you eating.
It looks like it might be a clone, but the git history is squashed for some reason.
I would recommend against installing this unless/until someone can do an audit to figure out which commit it was forked from and what the changes are.
Or better yet, find one of any of the other copies of the repository that don't have their git history squashed.
This looks like someone's attempt to capitalize on the drama to bring attention to their foundation (?) but losing git history is not a good thing for code provenance or security.
FULU Foundation is a right to repair group, which explains their interest in this. I, for one, support them. https://www.fulu.org/our-story
I agree with your point about git history, though. https://github.com/FULU-Foundation/OrcaSlicer-bambulab/issue...
tl;dr: The original developer does not (or cannot) go into legal battle with Bambu Lab, so Louis Rossmann's project picked up the fight and hosts the (allegedly) troublesome code on their organization. As they have more financial resources, they look forward to the C&D letter.
The point he has (and I agree with that): The original developer is using the un-modified AGPL-code to talk to the cloud API. Bambu Lab states that the modified client pretends to be a Bambu lab client. But in fact, the modified client just uses the code as-is, which is perfectly fine from a AGPL perspective. From my non-lawyer point of view: If Bambu Lab would have made the User Agent a configurable variable, which gets set by some configuration files from outside the code, that get bundled with the binary version, but not the source code, they wouldn't have this leverage.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jhRqgHxEP8
> What users want is to "have their cake and eat it too;" they want the local token authentication _and_ the cloud authentication enabled at the same time. This isn't actually possible, so this plugin approximates it by emulating the interface to the cloud authentication to make the "Bambu Network" cloud RPC calls from a local slicer (one of these calls is a local_print call, so ostensibly this allows you to send prints without running them through the cloud, although with all of the online functionality still enabled and required, this seems like a pretty brave thing to trust).
AIUI Bamba has made cloud access all or nothing: you either use local mode, with local slicing, and no cloud feature access at all, or you use cloud mode, with cloud slicing and access to all of the cloud features.
Can anyone explain what the cloud features that people want to retain are? Is it just app control of the printer, and print monitoring? Or are there other things to miss out on?
This is not the case of "wanting to have their cake and eat it too", as there is nothing mutually exclusive about these things. It requires no "emulation" or hacks - having a local API open to query state and push print jobs to the queue, while the printer connects to the cloud to publish state and pull the next job, presents no conflict.
Ultimaker has a similar feature set and had full local/cloud simultaneous integration. The only thing you "lost" by pushing a job locally was that when viewed in the cloud portal, the mini 3D model preview in the queue was missing, and only because they never bothered making the cloud solution pull it from the printer for local jobs.
But then they also did like Bambu and killed local printing entirely because they are all enterprise-only now want to sell you their higher Digital Factory subscriptions.
> Being able to push prints and use the printer with direct local connection, while simultaneously having remote monitoring and remote printing when cloud/internet works and is available.
So isn't an obvious approach to just cut Bambu out altogether and just create a FOSS cloud alternative, supporting the remote aspects that the users want to retain?
> This is not the case of "wanting to have their cake and eat it too", as there is nothing mutually exclusive about these things.
Nothing technically mutually exclusive, but isn't this exactly the choice that Bambu is enforcing? Which is crappy corporate enshittification behaviour, but something they can do if they so choose? (I'm not arguing in their favour - just trying to fully clarify the situation.)
My only gripe with the community approach is, why not replace them rather than attempt to use ANY servers they have? Jeff cleverly highlighted that all the slicers originate from Slic3r, there is always a point before Bambu.
It seems more likely they want it as a revenue source at some point.
The current monetization that they are using is that you can charge for a print on their platform and they take a cut of the sale. If you don’t charge for the design, then it is still free hosting and delivery.
I see where the worry is, but at the moment it seems like people are imagining a worse case scenario.
No, we aren’t being blocked. Turn on LAN mode, pair regular Orca slicer, ignore Bambu for the rest of eternity. Plenty of people have done it.
You're just saying that Bambu users feel the need to purposely circumvent Bambu's artificial restrictions to be able to continue to use Bambu hardware they bought and paid for.
No matter how you frame this, this ain't right.
It's a toggle you set in the printer directly, nothing is circumvented. Only the access through their cloud service is impacted, but the printer works locally like any other.
That's an artificial vendor tie-in, and arguably a feature that only involves their client app and their backend. It's understandable if access to their backend is restricted to a subset of their users if that's the business model they wish. Preventing paying customers from using the hardware they bought and paid for by imposing artificial restrictions is not cool.
They've bought a machine that executes gcode and that it does (at least to my understanding) regardless of where that gcode comes from.
If you want special secret sauce gcode from the bambu cloud, you need to use the bambu cloud.
Those are not the same thing, so IMO it is legit what they do there, because it's such a clear-cut split. You own the physical thing but not the ecosystem around it.
___
I would of course personally never buy a bambu lab printer, because they're cloud-tied nonsense that was going to behave exactly like that (the split between hw and ecosystem), but other people knew that too and still bought it, because "what a nice ecosystem".
idk. I just don't think that "right to repair" should mean "right to be saved from the consequences of my own bad actions".
Those bad actions continuing to have no real painful consequences (and with that no real learnings + behavioral correction) after all is why the state of tech has become as bleak as it is right now.
And, honestly, if you can afford a bambu premium machine, there's a 97% chance that you could easily shoulder a total write-off. There's also a 97% chance that your ego can't, but that's the main thing causing all the bad things in the world and should've died a long time ago. Approximately post-highschool.
I wouldn't buy an alternative to a P1S, because only the P1S is the best at being the P1S. (Whatever that might entail)
Instead, I'd look at things from the perspective of "what do I want?" and not "What does the market offer? Okay, I want that thing. But no, I want an alternative to it that is that thing but without downside"
Letting a brand set your frame of reference is the first step into total dependence.
It shouldn't be too complicated and not too expensive. E.g. while the Prusa Core One+ seemed nice (from a superficial look) it costs more than I wanted to spend. P1S came out as the best (barely) adequate printer for what I thought I would need when I looked at it. But it's difficult to say if you are a beginner and basically have no idea...
That's what I meant with "the P1S is the best at being the P1S when measured by the P1S".
I am pretty sure that if you for example do functional PLA parts, there will be many, many more options that tick exactly that box.
I do of course understand that people want to have the mental peace of buying one thing and being told that it can do everything, but, as said, you pay for that emotional labor with lock-in and eventually being rug-pulled.
The only way of not getting rug-pulled is not handing away all of your agency wholesale just for cheap immediate emotional relief.
That's how it works, how it has always worked and how it will always work. Anyone claiming anything else is in the process of actively scamming you.
This sounds really unpleasant to use. Maybe users just want a better UX for the local mode?
This isn't the thing you're talking about. There's a mode where I can send prints directly over the network which disables Bambu Studio, I assume?
Take a step back. What users want is to be able to use the machine they bought the way they want. The outrage is because Bambu are doing a bait-and-switch: selling an autonomous 3D printer, but switching to a 3D printing service. Enshittification pure and simple.
A different way of looking at it is that Bambu is saying if you want to use their cloud you have to send everything through their cloud. Stupid? Sure. It's very much a technically solvable problem. But I don't think there was any rug pull (this time; in Jan 2025 they tried...)
I think this is all more out of incompetence than malice. Something bad happens, exposing wildly inadequate programming expertise, they panic and over correct, and the community pushes back. They're great at making 3D printers, terrible at cloud infra.
More likely, it's technical incompetence. It's just easier (for their cloud) to send everything through their cloud
Using an AGPL violating mystery meat binary plugin that you run on your host, which potentially compromises any airgap you put around your printer (it attempts to connect to bambu servers, or did last time I checked it) and potentially your entire host.
Can you read the filaments installed in the printer over MQTT too?
Here's a good resource: https://github.com/Doridian/OpenBambuAPI
This is a very dubious opinion to hold. Taking your claim about local mode at face value, there is absolutely no reason to disable monitoring when working on LAN mode. You need to go way out of your way to implement that restriction so that it works differently when the thing phones home or not. You are free to criticize implementation decisions that you feel make it "untrustworthy" but those are trivial to address if you think about it.
I really recommend you to reassess your whole philosophical stance on having corporations prevent you from using what you bought and paid for.
I'm not sure why their entire domain has been excluded from archive.org but you can still see the original post for now: https://blog.bambulab.com/firmware-update-introducing-new-au...
--
Critical Operations That Require Authorization The following printer operations will require authorization controls:
Binding and unbinding the printer. Initiating remote video access. Performing firmware upgrades. Initiating a print job (via LAN or cloud mode). Controlling motion system, temperature, fans, AMS settings, calibrations, etc.
Because they have a track record of altering their website, gaslighting the community, and then getting caught through archive.org so they simply blocked it, not realizing that other archives exist and then getting caught again.
They tried to alter their warranty terms and got caught. They altered their ToS which would allow them to block prints until the printer firmware was updated. When the community got upset, they not only backpedaled but altered the associated blog post and accused everyone of spreading baseless misinformation because "it's clearly explained in this [edited, backdated] article".
That's precisely the article you linked to. See the original version:
http://archive.today/2025.01.16-173123/https://blog.bambulab...
Think about why they'd make such a request to archive.org.
Other vendors take note !
Local network support tends to look like a convenience feature until it disappears. Then it becomes obvious that it was part of the ownership model.
That’s a complete misunderstanding of the current state of affairs. Bambu didn’t take away local network support, and you can use any Bambu printer without any cloud or internet connection.
What you can’t do is use a 3rd party slicer with their cloud servers…
Yes they did. Chronology is important because it speaks to their motives. First they blocked Orca slicer and others from connecting to the printer even when the printer is running in LAN-only mode. Due to extensive backlash they later split "LAN mode" into "Standard mode LAN mode" and "Developer mode LAN mode".
The former, officially recommended, "secure" mode would prevent Orca slicer and others from using the printer.
"Developer mode LAN mode" dropped all form of access control (including existing access code + serial number pairing mechanism), leaving users completely exposed - any device on your network, and any process on your machine can freely take control of the printer. They simultaneously absolved themselves of all customer support responsibilities for anyone using this mode.
They also abandoned all work on features and bugs related to LAN mode (whether they affect standard mode or developer mode). Bambu Slicer is plagued by basic connectivity and usability issues that only affect LAN mode, feature parity is not there and there's been quite literally zero activity on any of the issues I've been following.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jhRqgHxEP8
There’s basically no information there. Is this just a copy of the other GitHub repo that was removed and someone is trying to rebrand it as their own? Or did they do some different work?
the explanation for that is here https://youtu.be/II2QF9JwtLc
basically louis found that not using AI to design his website drastically reduced the hits he would get from google.
(I get that web vitals might be taken into account, but you don't need a slop generator to make a static page)
I'm skeptical but I don't have time to watch the entire video so I don't want to cast an initial judgement on if he's correct or if it just has to do with his specific copy.
there is a huge difference between creating AI slop because i am lazy (which i think most people doing that are) and creating AI slop because otherwise google gives your website a bad rating.
now you and i may not care about google ratings, but many other people do, and the end result will be that all websites that want good ratings will end up being AI slop.
somehow we need to send google a message to stop that.
...
What are they even trying to rank for? It doesn’t make sense.
The masses love this. Really! They love their slop like the good little cattle they are. Source: I work in this field with customers, they love the AI-slop corpo-fied website that looks like an app.
This is something I learnt early in my start up career, "You are not your customer"; what you value and what your customers value may not be the same.
i'd say that when louis discovered that AI websites work better, it broke him in that regard. the choice is now creating a website that i own, as in "this is mine, i made this". or a website that works with google. but i'd want to distance myself from that website as far as possible. "i didn't make this myself, i needed this for google. i don't want to touch it"
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/synology-caves-walks...
It was absurdly cheap for its spec (£260 is what I paid, delivered) and can be run entirely without internet access with no issues. People were a bit miffed when they announced a v2 with multi-filament support, but they just announced an addon to upgrade the first version to a similar spec and it's again really cheap - £55 delivered here in the UK.
If I was printing more professionally I'd probably go for a Prusa, but the cost/benefit isn't there for someone new to it, unless you have plenty of dosh - in which case go for it. As someone getting into it, the price of the Centauri Carbon is so reasonable that it's hard to argue against it.
But for example I had some problems with my linear rods, talked to support for just a few minutes and 2 days later I had replacement parts at my door. This was a few years back though.
Also they give firmware updates, and even hardware upgrade for years! This IS really nice and I'm not sure any other printer manufacturer that sells to private people does this.
Yes, your upfront price is a bit higher. I say it's worth it.
I think it depends mostly on how you expect to use it. There may be alternatives that give you perfect prints with minimal fuzz. But for me it was great to have a machine I dare play around with. Like getting a tractor before a race car :)
So to say you spend significantly less money for a product that will be changed whenever bambu sees fit to whatever extend they see fit.
I regret my bambu purchase a lot. I have to keep up with all the ways bambu wants to lock in my hardware and take it basically away from me.
Eg. they are paying random people to host their models exclusively on MakerWorld (where the CCP tells you what's okay to print; try searching for anything 'Jinping'...). They are obviously pouring enormous amounts of cash into marketing on social media, especially YouTube (a lot of large maker channels became full-on advertisement platforms).
Their expenses are evidently enormous. There is no way they are running sustainable. It's a long con.
This is admittedly a bit tinfoil hat, but they wouldn't be the first company to attempt to legislate away the competition.
They are also subsidized by the Chinese government and are paying for users exclusively hosting on MakerWorld. Their move is obviously complete market capture, not sustainable finances at this point.
There is a lot of things going on. We can only speculate, but it sure ain't going to benefit end users.
When it's companies based in the U.S. or EU, like Chamberlain / LiftMaster garage door openers, it's pretty obvious they plan to monetize some cloud services subscription for upgraded features beyond the free basic tier as well as probably selling consumer data.
However, the China-based companies like Bambu Lab (and many others) are more puzzling because meaningful ongoing subscription revenue seems unlikely. Especially in the case of lower-end consumer tech peripherals where the companies usually invest as little as possible in their websites, ongoing feature updates or direct end-user support. Which makes no sense if they really aspire to build long-term subscription revenue. Here's my theory: the Chinese government is quietly compelling them to require cloud connections to China-based data centers as a long-term strategy.
I'm not even saying the companies are some direct arm of the Chinese government or planting nefarious firmware. I think that's too likely to be caught if done at mass scale and it's not even necessary. As long as the cloud servers are in Chinese data centers, the Chinese government can get consumer IP addresses and usage data just from passive packet sniffing and if things turn icy with some foreign countries, they can cause a lot of turmoil simply by selectively blocking packets at the firewall to brick millions of consumer devices.
I know it maybe sounds paranoid and, to be clear, I'm not claiming Bambu Labs specifically is doing this. I actually came up with this theory before I ever heard of Bambu Labs because I have a lot of inexpensive Chinese home automation devices and was surprised by their bizarre insistence on forcing cloud connectivity despite there being no apparent business model incentive and these smaller-scale Shenzen hardware companies showing zero enthusiasm for making a real business out of cloud services. Their cloud implementations are almost invariably the bare minimum possible and seem woefully underfunded. After all, for a low-margin hardware peripheral, every dollar spent running a no-revenue cloud after the sale is pure overhead in a business that live or dies by pennies. It's almost like requiring a cloud connection is an export tax the company is paying just to be left alone to sell their hardware overseas.
For home automation gear, cloud-connectivity is a non-starter in my book. In some cases, it's literally built into our walls, so I only buy devices which will work on a local-only subnet or on which I can install open source firmware like Tasmota or ESPHome.
it's been going on since the fucking cloud-into-everything fad started ~15 years ago
Some of the proposed 3d printer laws will require printers being sold to be capable of evaluating what you are using them for and blocking “bad” usages. I’m not aware of any such legislation around firearms.
People just ignored it because, shiny!
Wonder how Bambu can prevent this kind of forks, where no code - just instructions to AI on how to build a network plugin from scratch.
I thought that was the point, that people didn't want to be tethered to their servers?
There are many reasons one might prefer OrcaSlicer over Bambu Studio. One might be perfectly fine using Bambu's cloud services while preferring OrcaSlicer for different reasons; this is for those people.
Others might not want to use Bambu's cloud services at all; OrcaSlicer as it currently exists is fine for them.
i bought the dang thing, let me decide how I use it.
Amazing how controversial this statement is here in 2026.
they're going to try to make everything you have a subscription, starting with the homes you might try to buy. they don't even live here, but there's no laws stopping them, because your representatives personally benefit from letting things go for certain corporations/people (the same thing after the Citizens United decision)
[1] https://octoprint.org/support-octoprint/
I use LAN mode, plus a home assistant plugin to restore the lost functionality. The default webcam is pretty bad so I’ve also mounted a better one to my printer for a live video view that’s at more than 1fps.
The main thing I’ve lost by using lan mode is printing from my phone? I think there are ways to do that. But OrcaSlicer has so many options that are frequently worth adjusting over random presets other creators used; it’s a strictly better experience compared to printing on mobile.
I think there is some niche “cancel printing of one specific object” feature that I dont know how to use without the mobile app. If you are printing many objects at once, and one fails, you can cancel a specific part/object using the mobile app. Not sure how to do that with OrcaSlicer + lan mode, or if it’s even possible. (Edit: OrcaSlicer doesn’t support it. The home assistant plugin might? Bambu studio in lan mode doesn’t support it either, it requires the mobile app)
I don’t mind the sd card thing, also happy with my bottom of the barrel ender 3.
I get it. The convenience of networking - when it works FOR the customer - is great.
But networking controlled by corporations is a path to enshittification.
I could enable LAN mode and trust the mode does what it says.
I could trust others firmware reverse engineering to verify LAN mode does what it says.
I could isolate it on it's own wifi and I could block it at the home firewall from accessing the internet, to be sure.
But it was easier to simply leave it off my network.
Bambu is not (never has been?) targeting 3D printing hobbyist but everyday people; and for them cost/reliability is more important than running your custom slicer. Until there is a serious competitor that has a polished and cheap printer, Bambu can alienate all of the open source community and still be fine.
To me, this is an obvious security risk. These printers are often used in labs, startups, engineering teams, and potentially even government environments. If print data, models, logs, or usage patterns are routed through a company controlled infrastructure, that creates a real opportunity for corporate espionage or data harvesting.
I would not be surprised if Bambu Lab eventually faces the same level of scrutiny that Huawei network devices did.
Like Adobe's 'creative' software and Onshape, they are working as hard as possible to make YOU pay more to have less.
But when it was online, I never checked the app for failed prints. If the print has failed, I'll find out when I'm near enough to it to do something about it.
When offline, it amused me when there was a "hairball" and the printer detected it advising "AI Detecting Print Error".
At what level does an image analysis algorithm become "AI"?
"Computer Vision Model and Nozzle Telemetry Analysis Detect Print Error"?
This isn’t a PC Load Letter we can trust!
Prusa.
It’s like saying a bicycle is a serious contender to a train, they both have kind of similar things going on but you’d have to be insane to suggest that they do as good of a job as one another at the things people actually want to achieve.
Automatic filament changes would be nice for sure, I look forward to upgrading to one of their new INDX models.
i'm mostly printing small mechanical parts and i can't say i have any complaints, i assume a modern prusa would be much better, surely there are other FDM printers that are good?