Comment by asveikau
12 hours ago
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.
Pretty sure you can still print locally either via LAN or just SD card. At least I can on my A1.
The current monetization that they are using is that you can charge for a print on their platform and they take a cut of the sale. If you don’t charge for the design, then it is still free hosting and delivery.
I see where the worry is, but at the moment it seems like people are imagining a worse case scenario.
> But in this case the users want to use those features locally and are being blocked
No, we aren’t being blocked. Turn on LAN mode, pair regular Orca slicer, ignore Bambu for the rest of eternity. Plenty of people have done it.
> No, we aren’t being blocked. Turn on LAN mode, pair regular Orca slicer, ignore Bambu for the rest of eternity. Plenty of people have done it.
You're just saying that Bambu users feel the need to purposely circumvent Bambu's artificial restrictions to be able to continue to use Bambu hardware they bought and paid for.
No matter how you frame this, this ain't right.
> purposely circumvent Bambu's artificial restrictions
It's a toggle you set in the printer directly, nothing is circumvented. Only the access through their cloud service is impacted, but the printer works locally like any other.
If you turn on LAN mode, it acts exactly like every other printer. You can print directly to it from any slicer over your LAN, or dump gcode on the SD card directly.
People are saying the LAN mode lacks access to the webcam and possibly some other things. That is what this whole controversy is about. It's re-enabling some cloud features as local only and Bambu is calling it privacy or fraud.
I can use the webcam in LAN mode. Just - locally, in the slicer, not the cloud-based app.
not just lan mode, you have to enable developer mode, which blocks cloud access entirely so you lose advertised functionality.
They probably want to establish a commercial-use license. If you have a big print farm, you likely need all of those remote capabilities so you're going to need to pay for the license. The schmucks at home will likely continue to get it for free. Locking them into the cloud API by dangling convenient features just ensures most people won't stray into the local-only mode.