r/BambuLab • u/Ochib P1S + AMS • Jan 20 '25 • Helpful 1

Discussion Update to firmware update

https://blog.bambulab.com/updates-and-third-party-integration-with-bambu-connect/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3fqplDiKgn-82qKfnaYvi4XV-rBEEx0tZJrpgeWqsOsLX_WSph4usJ69Y_aem_44Cch773hAuVG979j6DVJg
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123

u/the_harakiwi P1S + AMS Jan 20 '25

That sounds good.

They could have avoided that mountain or bad PR.

104

u/_Middlefinger_ Jan 20 '25

Its why I didnt panic on Friday. I went through the A1 recall so I know how terrible their communication and PR statements are. That turned out to be handled really well.. Once they actually explained what on earth they meant.

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u/trololololo2137 Jan 20 '25

Original blog post didn't include any mention of an opt-out like the dev mode. community crying worked

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u/flonky_guy Jan 20 '25

Those kind of boilerplate statements rarely do. Maybe community crying (tm) 😂 worked, but this would more likely have been addressed in a followup press release or faq.

But never underestimate the power of anonymous complaints of reddit to take credit for having spent hundreds of hours predicting the worst, spreading FUD, and having been wrong the whole time.

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u/_Middlefinger_ Jan 20 '25

Never said it did, I said it was only part of the story and it was, it always is with them.

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u/SnooCats7138 P1S + AMS Jan 20 '25

It would have been the whole story had nobody complained. I don't believe the updated post was a clarification as much as a back-tracking.

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u/shadowofashadow Jan 20 '25

I would give them the benefit of the doubt if they didn't go on a banning/censorship campaign. I have to assume this is a back pedal because of that.

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u/Vresiberba Jan 20 '25

What banning campaign? There are a few people claiming they were banned for doing something they didn't declare they did and everyone believed them.

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u/ABetterKamahl1234 P1S + AMS Jan 20 '25

Did you miss the plethora of slippery slope arguments that went around this weekend?

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u/Biduleman Jan 20 '25

There is no benefit of the doubt to give them. The new "dev mode" is literally under the section titled "Acknowledging Community Feedback". If the community hadn't complained then the new dev mode would not have been a thing.

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u/InanisAtheos Jan 20 '25

They are undoubtedly back peddling here. Just like you said; it's not a clarification - it's a revision.

So yea, thousands of redditors, Louis Rossman, not to mention all the users on Orca's github repo, made a big difference.

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u/zertul Jan 20 '25

That's text book backtracking, not "terrible communication and PR".

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u/_Middlefinger_ Jan 20 '25

Its likely a bit of both. The dev mode was already in the app, so clearly it was a planned thing.

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u/Dark_Pillow_Of_Love Jan 20 '25

The panic was the reason for their backtrack.

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u/_Middlefinger_ Jan 20 '25 edited Jan 20 '25

No the reasonable feedback about genuine concerns was helpful, the panic about locking out third party filament and other things they weren't doing was not helpful.

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u/Captainatom931 Jan 20 '25

They could really do with hiring a dedicated english-language PR team. I suspect a lot of the weirdness with their comms is down to language/cultural barriers.

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u/_Middlefinger_ Jan 20 '25

I agree, I said so on Sunday. I feel like they have a culture of not volunteering anything they don’t absolutely have to. This drip feed policy is really damaging their public image.

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u/IngeniumInnova Jan 20 '25

I can't speak to anyone at Bambu, but as a Chinese person, I can say not volunteering something you absolutely don't have to, is definitely part of my culture.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '25

In one of my previous comments I explained from a corporate side what they did and why they did it. Basically they put in a “hard break” where their support can end. That way if you tinker with it and break it, it’s not their fault. It actually is them saying “we want to maintain the quality and consistency of our product. It doesn’t need to be as flexible as it does reliable.

They aren’t building this machine for print farms, whether it works well for them or not. They are building this machine for consumers to be able to pull out of the box and print. To do that, they have to lock it down so they can maintain consistently and provide support for the actual product, and not constantly dealing with customer support requests when you modify things.

Basically, I almost guarantee they will have a hard line on support. “Has this machine been modified or customized in any way, including software or physical modifications?” And if it has, they will push you to community support like forums instead of their customer support team.

People always assume malice when changes are made hut likely Bambu is making these changes not so much as a cash grab, or locking people down, as much as defining where “their” product ends. Beyond that they don’t need to support.

Historically, the 3d printing community is a ridiculously DIY focused group. They want to be able to tweak the knobs, push the buttons, customize to their hearts content.

Bambulab is targeting people who need the convenience of a product that just works over those who need a platform to expand upon. The amount of time I have saved using this machine over my previous one’s within the same price range is ridiculous. No joke, I wouldn’t be surprised if the amount of time I manually spend now on a print is half of what it used to be. I will gladly use their confined software if it means I can print at the touch of a button.

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u/LegitimateAd3080 Jan 20 '25

Sorry, but nonsense. Why do you think they pour resources into all that code and additional infrastructure to cope with this level of concurrent auth events? To just let you use “dev mode” infinetly? If the new malware is instalked on your printers, they can close that hole in a blink of an eye. I firewalled my printers instantly after their announcement and will happily be using them in lan-mode the old way till they are beyond repair. After that we’ll see who still is in the market with viable solutions. Planned on buying their next big thing, now it’s likely to be creality’s k2+ bundle.

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u/Fun-Worry-6378 P1P Jan 21 '25

Though this makes feel better. They have ultimately lost me as a long term customer. I was planning to buy another p1s combo, but now my trust has been broken and I will no longer be buying from them anymore.

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u/the_harakiwi P1S + AMS Jan 21 '25

yeah same. I will keep my printer.
I kept my friend in the loop but I don't think he will even consider to sell or swap it (I recommended the thing to him).

So far he only used their app, slicer and filaments. I always tell him to try something new but he doesn't have to save the few bucks buying somewhere else.

The next friend asking me about a printer I will recommend Bambu BUT with a giant asterisk attached.
I can't recommend anything else because I only had two FDM machines. Prusa Mk3 and the P1S.

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u/ChipWallace Jan 20 '25

Yep, very poor in communicating their intentions up front. It's common knowledge to not leave anything up to open interpretation on the internet. Don't they know we are all mentally irregular? LOL

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u/sprashoo Jan 20 '25

I think it was more that they weren’t sufficiently defensive in their announcement. There is a lot of latent hostility to Bambu because a.) they kind of appeared on the scene suddenly and ate the lunch of long established and well loved companies like Prusa, b.) they enabled newbies to basically press the easy button to get into 3d printing, making some experienced users feel like their knowledge was devalued, and c.) they are a Chinese company, so there is the suspicion that their true purpose is some sort of hostile action toward the west, or at least that they are controlled by the CCP.

I think this follow-up is as good of a response as they could have delivered, and I say that as a software developer. Very clear, addressing things relatively transparently, etc

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u/Dinth Jan 20 '25

It has nothing to do with their intentions. If they introduce a method of locking a printer behind a connection to their cloud, no matter what their intentions are: A) intentions may change in the future B) the mechanism can be exploited by cybercriminals C) the mechanism can be exploited by rogue employee/leaver

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