Looks like Bambu is getting more enshittified. I am so glad I didn’t let my recent frustration at my clumsiness with my Prusa steer me into Bambu-land.
They’re trying hard to couch this as a security thing but I remain unconvinced that the “threats” they’re positing actually exist. Do you even leave your printer connected to the outside internet anyway? I sure as shit don’t.
The only person they’re locking out of your printer with this is you. This is to keep you walled within their own bullshit software ecosystem as much as possible, and the only possible benefit of that is so they can inflict further restrictions later, probably in the hopes of making the software side of their crap a subscription model so they can extort you for that sweet recurring revenue.
Their bambu filament has an RFID tag in it, presumably so you don’t have to tell the printer what kind of filament is loaded. I would bet big $$ that is going to be used to lock out third party filament at some point. Calling it here and now.
The RFID is only used by the AMS. As long as they support direct filament insertion without an AMS, and they have to if they want to support TPU and other exotics, then they can’t lock out 3rd party filament.
Then why implement over the top security and encryption in said RFID tags if it’s only for AMS compatibility? The fact they went to so much trouble is writing on the wall that some time in the future they want to try and implement a printer cartridge-esque walled garden where only approved filaments can be used.
I do hope this backfires on them considerably.
Eh. I’m sure they’ll continue to pay enough influencers to gush about their products all the time to keep sales running strong well into the foreseeable future.
Remember that a significant population of people deliberately buy Apple products, among other firmly closed, enshittified, and user-hostile products/systems. The majority of consumers are sadly not educated enough to care and their money is still indeed green.
If you choose to upgrade to the firmware version with Authorization Features, you must download and install Bambu Connect (a printer control software) from the official website. After installation, you can export sliced .3mf files from OrcaSlicer and open them with Bambu Connect. This software allows you to send the files to your printer and monitor print progress.
It feels like an effort to start locking out third party tools (like any slicer other than Bambu Studio), but I’m sure it’s not going to stop there. For now, they’re making you slice it, export the 3mf project, import that to Bambu studio, then send it to the printer, which is likely to piss off a lot of people.
Ngl I’m just never going to update my firmware, unless they force push it without my input. My x1c works fine there’s nothing I can see them adding that I need anymore.
Luckily they have a procedure for enabling third party firmware, and the third party firmware (X1Plus) doesn’t have to include this crap.
So I’m just not going to update mg firmware then? I’m already using lan only mkde, and if I have to start using an SD card I guess I can do that.
My A1 mini is 3 weeks old and I love it but this sucks… It always starts with “security” and i can totally see them going subscription model and locking you into their ecosystem. I guess that’s why it was so cheap and on sale haha. Sucks to see such an amazing product and success to go downhill so quickly…
It’s already happened with the Anycubic Kobra 2 Max - no way to connect directly, everything must go through their cloud to print, via their slicer only.
Good to know, that’s another one that won’t ever make the recommendation list then
Seen some threads on reddit of people swapping out for skr boards, found a git repo doing that for an adapter kit but does look to have things documented.
End of the day, it’s just some steppers, sensors and heaters, klipper supports a bunch of different printer types (bed slinger, core xy, core xz, cartesian, polar, like seriously a lot). Hard part on some of these would more likely be connect components to the board, need to know voltages and pinout for example, but if you can figure that out you’re good. Klipper is amazing and you can replicate a lot of custom stuff in macros.
