Comment by ssl-3
3 days ago
Sure. I think I can explain the advantage of that.
With an Internet connection to their clown, a Bambu Labs printer doesn't require a person to deal with computers in the traditional sense. Like, at all.
The printer can be over there on the table, and a person can use it while sitting on their sofa with the cell phone that's in their hand. There's nothing else required for this to happen. They can browse models, customize them some, and print them all from their phone.
In this way, a person doesn't even need to know how to use a PC in order to casually print some widgets at home.
They don't need to know how networks or VPNs or open Internet-facing ports work, either. They can monitor then print job from anywhere without doing that stuff at all.
They don't need to plug a USB cable in. They don't need to know what an SD card even is.
Head outside, away from wifi? No worries: The printer still works the same whether the user's pocket supercomputer is inside, outside, at the grocery store, or anywhere else.
And for a lot of folks, that's pretty nice. My nephew, for instance, consistently prints amazingly-clean parts with his Bambu Labs machine and he puts zero effort into doing so. For him, at least, It Just Works.
---
I can see why some folks in this particular audience may have some trouble appreciating the utility of this kind of apparent simplicity. After all, if there's anything that typifies someone on HN, it is that we're all avid computer users.
But we're weird in this way. Most people are not like this at all.
And to be clear: I myself have zero interest in cloud-oriented 3D printing. But I'm of the weirdest subset: I build my own 3D printers because I enjoy the process of solving the problems that are involved in doing so. If I want to control a printer from my phone from 3 states away, then I'll get that done on my own.
One can understand why Internet access is useful, but why would it have to be mandatory?
The convenience of wifi printing is obvious. That doesn't explain why you don't allow USB printing. I'm not suggesting that they should remove wifi printing. I'm questioning why they removed USB printing.
A person may appreciate the utility of this apparent simplicity just fine and still need a different solution for any of a variety of reasons. That doesn't make them weird.
You specifically highlight printing from a phone. Did you notice that the phone doesn't remove the ability to communicate over the cellular radio or the bluetooth radio just because a user might find the wifi radio convenient? It would be weird if it did.
For USB to a computer, specifically: Lots of folks just don't care. It's not on their radar.
Historically, lots of relatively popular printers have had pretty iffy support for that -- with a USB B port that ties directly into the 5v bus inside the printer alongside the printer's own power supply and this arrangement causing weird stuff to happen.
The Creality CR-10 is afflicted in this way, for example: It seems like a no-brainer to use a USB cable to drive it with Octoprint or Klipper using a Pi or something, or use it with a nearby PC, but things can turn stupid. There's a generalized note about this in Klipper's FAQ: https://www.klipper3d.org/FAQ.html
Now, that said: I'd rather have a USB device-mode port that works properly; barring that, it'd be better to have one that can be made to work well-enough than to have none at all. I'd also like to have serial data (both at RS-232 big-boy volts and TTL), and a real Ethernet port. I want an EPO input so a person can smash a big button when things go wrong, and an EPO output so the printer can shut stuff off on its own when it decides that things have gone wrong.
My connectivity desires don't align very well with what most people want out of their 3D-printing appliance, but they're real desires just the same...and I don't expect them to be fulfilled.
Anyway, it seems that Bambu Labs printers work fine, locally, over wifi. That's apparently a built-in function that can work with things like Orcaslicer. When it simply acts as a printer on a LAN, then I don't really need USB unless I'm just being pedantic today.
And as previously-discussed, Bambu Labs printers also have a clown-based mode that does clown-based stuff.
They don't do both modes simultaneously, but meh. So what? How many brains should one lowly 3D printer have to listen to concurrently?
---
Anyway, the plugin under contention here seems to use the company's clown services to manage the printer instead of directly controlling it over the LAN.
And while I certainly cherish all efforts to enforce and enhance our ability to use the hardware we own in any way that we choose, this mentality doesn't extend to use of services that are provided by others.