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.
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.
Sure, but it's their right to enact that restriction on their software. There are more open alternatives like Prusa , Elgoo, or Creality if people prefer a more open/freedom approach. On the other hand, Bambu has a reputation for having most of the best products in the space.
Of course, many prefer to break their license agreement because They Really Want It, in effect daring Bambu to get aggressive with license enforcement. They probably won't...
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).
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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…
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.
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'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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
> This isn't actually possible
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.
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.
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Sure, but it's their right to enact that restriction on their software. There are more open alternatives like Prusa , Elgoo, or Creality if people prefer a more open/freedom approach. On the other hand, Bambu has a reputation for having most of the best products in the space.
Of course, many prefer to break their license agreement because They Really Want It, in effect daring Bambu to get aggressive with license enforcement. They probably won't...
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Ok, so as a heavy user of Bambu printers:
> 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).
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.
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> 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.
> attention to their foundation
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...
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.
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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.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jhRqgHxEP8
Personally I'd be fine with the LAN mode assuming I don't have to use their cloud even once.
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?
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.
But in this case the users want to use those features locally and are being blocked. Using a resource constraint argument doesn't make sense for it.
It seems more likely they want it as a revenue source at some point.
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> 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.
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> where the device displays a token and you put it into your app.
This sounds really unpleasant to use. Maybe users just want a better UX for the local mode?
I believe it's a one time pairing code, not each print. FWIW I like the design.
It's more of an API key that whatever client or code you're using needs.
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> What users want...
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.
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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?
it's because you're the product and they want the designs i think
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> clients can send prints locally
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.
No, the binaries aren’t necessary in LAN + Developer mode.
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> (...) 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.
Found the corpo cuck
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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.
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...
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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:
http://archive.today/2025.01.16-173123/https://blog.bambulab...
>I'm not sure why their entire domain has been excluded from archive.org
Think about why they'd make such a request to archive.org.
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.
Other vendors take note !
In the issues there is a link to another repo: https://github.com/danielcherubini/fork-a-slicer
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.
https://www.fulu.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jhRqgHxEP8
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?
That’s an LLM generated website if I’ve ever seen one
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.
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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…
> Bambu didn’t take away local network support
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.
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…
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.
You have to consider that you do not own the product from bambu.
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.
Less money because you get significantly closed product likely susbidised by state to dominate the open competition.
What is Bambu’s motivation here? What do they get for damaging their credibility like this? Just usage data? Training a model on everyone’s STL files?
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'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.
>lately
it's been going on since the fucking cloud-into-everything fad started ~15 years ago
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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.
More strictly than firearms, in fact.
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.
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Bambu had any credibility to lose? Isn't this behavior exactly what was expected from them?
People just ignored it because, shiny!
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...
Synology works with any hard drive. I bought a new unit and installed WD drives in it. No issues.
They did revert this because of public backlash:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/synology-caves-walks...
Squashing the git history is not cool.
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.
> This version of OrcaSlicer restores full BambuNetwork support for Bambu Lab printers
I thought that was the point, that people didn't want to be tethered to their servers?
People want the option.
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.
this is it for me
i bought the dang thing, let me decide how I use it.
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People want remote access to their printers, a feature which seems to be tied to Bambu servers.
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.
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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.
Doesn’t it have a lan mode?
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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.
I have an Ender 3 too. And I have a Bambu machine - that I leave offline and use via microSD card as the Ender got me used to.
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.
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).
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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.
Imagine if traditional printers were this big of a pain to use… oh
As long as 3d printers are less than 50% harder to use than normal printers, they're dimensionally easier per capita.
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.
For a moment I thought this was a way to get cloud printing restored to bambu printers without leaving lan-mode, would have been nice
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.
They are an adversarial player in the market, actively trying to lock users into an ecosystem that is incompatible with other printers.
Like Adobe's 'creative' software and Onshape, they are working as hard as possible to make YOU pay more to have less.
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I tried it but switched back to the online mode because being able to remotely check in via the app is very useful to check the print hasn't failed.
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> They’re the only competent and reliable printer that isn’t a project car in itself
Prusa.
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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?
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Two words: Good luck!
At this poting BL is just like USA tech companies, touch their food and you are toasted. Sell your printer while you can get the its worth back.
Our food toasts people when touched?
That was my takeaway; TIL. Perhaps a "USA tech compan(y)" will productize this.
I like toasts. Taste better than people.