Man, I did not edit a darn thing in this video. I should have put in a lot more BRoll of printing in the wilderness and all kinds of things. But I hear most people don’t actually pay attention the visuals of videos these days, so we’ll see how this does. If it does any kind of well, I’m going to 100% credit the silly thumbnail for this one.
As I’m doing a Bambu 3D printer in this video, I expect there’s going to be some engagement with this video about BambuLabs. There’s some drama going on right now that I’ve largely kept myself aloof from. But, hey, if folks want to complain about my use of a Bambu 3D printer, then I welcome the engagement.
I am considering a video on the topic, but as is often the case, I end up putting my thoughts in a Blog post and that’s it. So that’s what I’m going to do now.
There is a lot of drama surrounding BambuLabs after they made the choice to plug some security loopholes in their 3D printers. And most of the criticism is in the form of “BambuLabs could do this, and this is a clear sign that they’re headed that direction.” That is classic conspiracy theory or hysterics logic. I don’t subscribe to any of that. BambuLabs has been accused of possibly doing a lot of things in the past, and thus far they have never actually done any of the things they’ve been accused of. In fact, time and time again, it’s the accusers who end up with egg of their face.
And the reason BambuLabs isn’t doing any of the terrible things that they’ve been accused of is because those terrible things would be financial suicide! Every accusation leveled at them would destroy their business if they were true. I can not believe that BambuLabs would build the best 3D printer on the market, sell it for a fair price that the market would have said was too high at the time, and redefine consumer demands for the whole of the 3D printing market, only to throw that all away.
However, to be fair, BambuLabs is making it real easy for the critics to come up with these crazy ideas. Because BambuLabs is the only 3D printer that, by default, streams their prints through an online service. That’s not to say that BambuLabs is the only 3D printer that could stream prints through an online service. Flashforge printers have been capable of streaming prints through PolarCloud and with the K1 Creality introduced CrealityCloud printing. But both of these options are optional and secondary to direct LAN wifi printing. 3D printing through a web service certainly has some advantages, including being able to monitor your print from anywhere you have an internet connection to being able to relocate your printers anywhere and still start a print from home. I myself am currently using that second option right now with an A1 mini at the makerspace.
But by having that option be the default, it raises a lot of questions about what data BambuLabs might be gathering. Now, to be reiterate, I don’t believe BambuLabs is gathering any data and selling it to 3rd parties because, first of all, the there isn’t any useful data they could be gathering, and, again, it would be financial suicide if that were found out. Heck, the accusations alone have created a cascade of “Well, I was gonna buy a P1S, but I’m not going to now.” (Though the sincerity of such comments is fairly suspect.)
All BambuLabs would have to do to make these accusations go away is:
- Make LAN mode easier to access
- Make LAN mode the default connection type
- Make streaming prints through their servers optional.
Basically, do it like the folks who aren’t being accused of all the stuff BambuLabs has been accused of. Now, this will mean that folks won’t be able to check their prints until they activate streaming prints, but then that choice is on the consumer.
Of course, there’s another option that would satisfy a lot of people. Don’t stream the print through the internet if the printer and slicer are on the same LAN. They can still send a notification to the server that a print has started on the printer so that the printer owners still get the benefit of remote monitoring, but save themselves the bandwidth when they can. Honestly, I don’t know why BambuLabs makes streaming that much data through their servers the default. That’s a server they have to maintain with a lot of data being pushed through it. This hybrid mode would take a load off their servers and save them money. And sending a notification to the server could be an option chosen at the time of starting a print! “Enable Remote Monitoring”. If the user decides they don’t need to watch this print, then don’t even send the notification to the server and save them even more data! It’s a win-win. Because if they put that option in the hands of users, no one will accuse them any more of snooping on our data. We’re literally handing it over to them in exchange for ease of use.
And what would the haters have left to complain about? Nothing. BambuLabs would be free to dominate the 3D printing landscape until their presence was absolute and they could take over every idle machine to 3D printing the robot uprising.
