Discussion summary
Discussions revolve around Bambu Lab's use of cloud infrastructure and open source principles, with some users defending their choices while others criticize potential overreach.
What the discussion says
- Some users prefer owning hardware without cloud dependencies.
- Others argue Bambu Lab's cloud costs are justified.
- Critics believe Bambu Lab may be abusing open source trust.
- Users highlight alternative printing methods like LAN or USB.
“I like to own what I purchase and not have the company watch everything.”
“Bambu Lab has made mistakes, but this isn't one of them.”
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- Hacker News
- Related topic from 2 days ago : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48084432
Bamboo not understanding the OS licencing when they themselves took from Prusa if I remember correct is pretty rich.
by bilekas - Was about to pull the trigger on a P2S. Now I'm not.
Bambu Studio is literally a PrusaSlicer fork. You don't get to build on the community and then threaten it.
by JoheyDev888 - I'm an open-source advocate (some would say zealot?) but I ended up buying a Bambu P1S a few months back because my research indicated that there were ways use it normally without creating a Bambu account, or using their slicer, or having to send all of your prints through their servers.
I don't have my notes in front of me, but I managed to do all of that with hardly any trouble at all. IIRC, you only had to change one setting on the printer itself, and optionally block the printer from Internet access via the firewall to prevent automatic firmware updates and telemetry. I have only used OrcaSlicer to tweak my models, mess with parameters, and send the prints to the printers.
So other than Bambu getting all heavy-handed with a legitimate open-source fork of their slicer software (which is definitely not okay), I'm not sure I'm clear on what the kerfuffle is about. Are their printers now MORE locked down than before? Or maybe only certain models?
by bityard - I am an outsider on the details of the Bambu software requiring users to go through their servers in China and the closing of their software.
Still I suspect it is about spying in wartime, Bambu printers are at the core of the Ukrainian war effort, the main reason even Ukraine is winning since januari 2026.
First China prevented Ukraine from using any of the drones that they sold in millions to Russia while exercising the built in kill switches in Chinese drones used in by Ukrainians.
Suddenly Bambu, another Chinese company started listening in on the 3D printing on a massive scale in secret factories all over Ukraine that make the drones to replace the Chinese drones. Very suspicious.
Whatever is the reason Bambu locks down software or firmware on their 3D printers, now is the time for programmers to change the situation. We need to put up money like Louis Rossmann did [1], not to fight legal battles but for a assembly language programmer to reverse engineer the Bambu firmware and make a free and open source version.
This firmware replacement will cost a couple of months to write so we all should send that programmer a little money so he/she can release it for free.
A free Bambu firmware will allow the Ukranians to continue producing another few million drones and save over a hundred thousands lives by ending the war.
Now is the chance for us outsiders to help Ukraine, by freeing Bambu firmware.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLLVn6XT7v0
P.S. I would be willing to do the reverse engineering but I would need at least 35 euro per day (to eat) to build a new firmware for all Bambu models from scratch. I would need a few different models of printers on loan for a few weeks to test the new firmware. I estimate it would take 5-9 months to rebuild firmware for all models from zero and release it. Maybe Rossmann and Geerling could use their influence and coördinate this freeing of the firmware?
I just emailed Rosmann and Geering to see if we together can free the Bambu firmware. Anyone who wants to help, please contact me trough my HN profile.
by morphle - "It pretended to be the official client" is not a security argument if the mechanism was client-supplied metadata.
That’s not impersonation. That’s Bambu discovering that user agents are not authentication.
by danielrmay - Funny how fast people forget. LAN mode was NOT part of their original plan until outrage like this happened last time. They shifted their course and changed their blog post after. Putting pressure as a customer is how you steer company’s direction.by syntaxing
- This sentence in Bambu Lab's blog post is wild:
> We have documented incidents of service outages caused precisely by spikes in unauthorized traffic - overwhelming the servers, causing service disruptions affecting everyone. The cost was instability felt by all users.
So it's a problem that their printers are popular, and they can't be bothered to scale their infra, so let's gate everything based on USER AGENT STRING! This is so crazy of an excuse that I don't believe it.
by 9cb14c1ec0 - Full disclosure: I've never owned a Bambu because I've never loved the idea of a "closed" ecosystem 3D printer, however I have used them, and am very familiar with the 3d printing space beyond Bambu.
For anyone considering alternatives: You should know that almost all other 3D printers expect you to know a little more about how they actually work than Bambus. Bambus are as close as you can get to a "just works" type experience, but modern alternatives from others are nowhere near as hard as they used to be.
The closest "easy" alternative is probably Prusa, but you'll pay significantly more for a Prusa machine than you would a Bambu. They're an excellent company, and the complete opposite of Bambu when it comes to Openness. If money is no object, Prusa is highly recommended.
Beyond Prusa, there's a lot of other options. https://auroratechchannel.com/#section2 This list is a good one.
I personally run an old Elegoo Neptune 4 pro - but my needs are quite low. If I were buying today, a Snapmaker U1 or the Creality K2 Plus is probably where I'd end up going.
by kn100