Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of any developing tech scandal is the way that the target company handles criticism and feedback from the community. After announcing a new authentication scheme for cloud & LAN-based operations a few days ago, Bambu Lab today posted an update that’s supposed to address said criticism and feedback. This follows the original announcement which had the 3D printer community up in arms, and quickly saw the new tool that’s supposed to provide safe and secure communications with Bambu Lab printers ripped apart to extract the security certificate and private key.
In the new blog post, the Bambu Lab spokesperson takes a few paragraphs to get to the points which the community are most concerned about, which is interoperability between tools like OrcaSlicer and Bambu Lab printers. The above graphic is what they envision it will look like, with purportedly OrcaSlicer getting a network plugin that should provide direct access, but so far the Bambu Connect app remains required. It’s also noted that this new firmware is ‘just Beta firmware’.
As the flaming wreck that’s Bambu Lab’s PR efforts keeps hurtling down the highway of public opinion, we’d be remiss to not point out that with the security certificate and private key being easily obtainable from the Bambu Connect Electron app, there is absolutely no point to any of what Bambu Lab is doing.
“with the security certificate and private key being easily obtainable from the Bambu Connect Electron app, there is absolutely no point to any of what Bambu Lab is doing”
Unless what they’re doing is only under the guise of security, and is actually a move to restrict / controll interoperability outside of their walled garden.
Yeah, Bambu gets absolutely zero benefit of the doubt here. This is the beginning of them tying and locking the hardware people bought and own to their cloud platform.
It seems completely obvious that they are trying to attack the Panda Touch in an attempt to protect margins on their higher-margin printers, and that they are “security washing” the attempt.
Absolutely. Notice the wording in their PR release, that they mandate that they determine who are ‘legitimate’ developers (which likely means NDAs, and paying them).
Yes and frigging whyyy. I knew the P1S could be modded and still got the X1C as I didn’t want a new hobby of modding a 3D printer. Pretty sure lots of others did the same.
I’m not familiar with their features, how does the panda touch undermine the X1C?
The Panda Touch is a product that provides a touch screen for the P1 series of printers – that is the printers that don’t have the full-color touch screen, but have a less expensive dot-matrix display with a 4-way pad.
So basically, people might be buying the P1S and a Panda-Touch instead of an X1 Carbon.
You blew it, Bambu, my next 100 printers will NOT be Bambu brand.
Yeah – I was a pretty ardent defender of BambuLab. I recommended them. I am really happy with my printer – but the way this has gone down, and their doubling down on how the community has “misunderstood” it, and “misinformation is being spread” has pushed me over the edge. I can’t recommend these any more because I don’t feel confident that the printer I recommend can be used the same way I’m using it right now. I’m not even sure that I’ll be able to keep using my printer that I bought the way I’m using it right now.
So no. I’ll have to find a different manufacturer to recommend. But I don’t know who. Prusa is not the shining beacon it once was. The Open source projects like RatRig and Voron are amazing, but certainly not plug-and-play.
I hate the “It’s a beta!” excuse being trotted out in response to criticisms of the desired behavior or architecture of something.
Bug are to be expected; but it it’s a beta it’s release-level in terms of expressing what you are planning to do and how you are planning to do it
I’m not part of the 3d printer community.
I personally never wanted (i have lusted for) a Bambu printer cause I have always felt the leather glove around my throat.
They have been hyper aggressive in advertising and seems like they are taking over youtube makers then “praying they don’t change the deal” nonsense
Ya know I got an ender like 4 years ago for birthday money, it prints it does ok I don’t need apps and mandatory updates
Its nothing fancy bit the 4 projects a year I need it its there