Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect • Hacker News Board

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#271

Post by deng » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 5:25 PM UTC

esskay wrote: post #187

harrall wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Prusa was open and did compete. But for 3D printers that worked out of the box under $1000, Prusa had no real competition itself. The Mk3 came out in 2017 and I swear Prusa just sat on their laurels. I was a Mk3s+ owner (well, still am) and was pretty disappointed how little improved with the Mk4. Bambu’s competition was Prusa and they clearly strived to improve over what Prusa had accomplished.

The problem is even with Prusas recent efforts to catch up with the Core One, it's expensive, and they still dont have a viable answer to the AMS. The MMU is still a hot mess, requires tinkering, isn't stable and overall just doesnt come close to an out of the box experience. They still seem to be thinking the primary audience of 3d printers is people who tinker. It's not been that way for a long time. People just wa…

"hot mess" is not a fair assessment. The MMU2 was terribly unreliable, but the MMU3 is OK. It's surely more complicated to set up and requires more space than the AMS, but on the other hand, I think AMS concept is just plain bad. It's incredibly slow and produces a ton of plastic waste.

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#272

Post by emiliobumachar » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 5:31 PM UTC

rickdeckard wrote: post #256

stavros wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They officially supported me printing without an Internet connection, which is stopping now.

Sorry to potentially pour oil into fire here, but I'm curious: did they really? "Officially support" printing without internet connection? Was this explicitly documented as a feature or did this just "happen to work" as you expected? A lawsuit may have some leverage to find that something could have been "reasonably expected" to work in a certain way, but that's quite uncertain territory. i.e. I would expect an Apple…

My toilet doesn't officially support crapping without an internet connection either. I'd argue that in both cases it's implicit unless very explicitly disclaimed.

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#273

Post by dspillett » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 5:32 PM UTC

dspillett wrote: post #220

NelsonMinar wrote: post #24

I am angry at the bait-and-switch Bambu is pulling. I bought one of their printers in the Black Friday sale on the understanding it was reasonably hackable and open. Now they're trying to lock it down so I can't print on my own printer without using their approved software and DRM chain. It's outrageous. More info on the hacking (the first in what may be a long stupid fight): https://hackaday.com/2025/01/19/bambu-con…

> on the understanding it was reasonably hackable and open While this lock down doesn't seem right it is far from unexpected, I question the amount of research done prior to your Black Friday purchase (BF and well-thought-out-decisions often do not go hang-in-hand!)… I bought one (an A1 with the multi-material add-on) some months before that in full knowledge that the company would prefer to funnel people into a wall…

An extra point that it is too late to edit in, on openness wrt software: unlike some companies we could all mention, they are playing right with the slicer software. It is heavily based on earlier AGPL3 licensed software and their work is correctly licensed also: https://github.com/bambulab/BambuStudio/blob/master/LICENSE

There might be some question as to whether anything like the connectivity layer that sits between BS and the printer that currently isn't open, should also be AGPL. I'll leave discussion of how AGPL and losly linked components do/n't work together to people with more experience in the area…

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#274

Post by Arch-TK » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 5:40 PM UTC

piaste wrote: post #260

Arch-TK wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, the recommendation I always give, and personally follow: keep a spare phone in a drawer somewhere, with official Android installed, a Google account, and use it exclusively for business purposes - banking, government services, and the email account you use for those (separate from the one you use for everything else). Nothing else, no messaging, socials, browsing, or games. Anything which doesn't support…

I certainly agree with the sentiment (I would trust-bust tech giants, and severely restrict advertising as a whole for being a negative-sum game). Nevertheless, for living in this world while preserving your privacy, my advice stands. Separate the devices that you control, which you will use for personal and private purposes, from the devices that global corporations and institutions control, which you will use to ac…

> It is far, far simpler than having to get proprietary, frequently-updated software to play nice inside a secure sandbox. If they do, great, but separate devices ensures it isn't a capital-P Problem for you if they stop.

What I am saying (and what I do) is that it's far simpler still to just not rely on anything where this might be the case.

If my bank turned around tomorrow and said I can't use their website to manage my account, I would not attempt to get their app working on my phone, I would switch bank.

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#275

Post by CamperBob2 » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 5:51 PM UTC

po wrote: post #120

askariwa wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just some of them: - Battery Management (iPhone 6, 6s, and SE): In 2017, Apple introduced a battery management feature in iOS 10.2.1 to prevent unexpected shutdowns by throttling the performance of iPhones with degraded batteries. This led to slower device performance without informing users, which is a removal of expected performance functionality. - 32-bit App Support: With the release of iOS 11 in 2017, Apple drop…

> This led to slower device performance without informing users, which is a removal of expected performance functionality. As opposed to the device unexpectedly shutting down due to a degraded battery not being able to push enough energy to support the CPU? They didn't remove expected performance, they prevented crashes which are by definition 0 performance. All Li-ion batteries degrade over time. That's not removing…

It was not overblown. Apple didn't disclose what they were doing or give the user the option to decide what was best for them. When a company chooses to behave that way, it should hurt them, and it did.

Apple's actions in this case were even worse than Bambu's. At least Bambu documented what the update did and offered the option of declining it.

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#276

Post by asveikau » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 5:59 PM UTC

nialv7 wrote: post #34

NelsonMinar wrote: post #24

I am angry at the bait-and-switch Bambu is pulling. I bought one of their printers in the Black Friday sale on the understanding it was reasonably hackable and open. Now they're trying to lock it down so I can't print on my own printer without using their approved software and DRM chain. It's outrageous. More info on the hacking (the first in what may be a long stupid fight): https://hackaday.com/2025/01/19/bambu-con…

bait-and-switch? We, those who advocate for open source 3D printers, saw it coming from miles away. This has very very clearly been their plan all along, they themselves said as much (e.g. they are doing the "apple model"). They have been very transparent about this, yet people still fell for it.

I got into 3d printing a few years ago and noticed the same, bambu made me nervous for exactly this.

But the fanboyism and shilling in the 3d printing community is intense. If you mentioned these misgivings you'd get flamed. If you bought or enjoyed another printer people would advise you to sell it and buy Bambu. Lots of people in various threads seemed to defer to that kind of expert advice.

I think there is/was a similar fanaticism for Prusa going on, but it seems a little less at the forefront since Bambu.

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#277

Post by Ccecil » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:25 PM UTC

bhhaskin wrote: post #38

myself248 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Security" on behalf of the user is a complete red herring. You can't print to my 2d printer or my 3d printer, but I can, with "any old device or application". Because they're on my network, not public on the internet.

I disagree. These devices can easily burn down people's homes if given bad G-code. Then they would be sued into the dirt for a security whole a mile wide. Looking at the changes this is about liability.

You mean like when Bambu issues a firmware update remotely and many printers which were sitting idle just start printing without being commanded by the user? [1]

I personally do not want my printer connected to any vendor's server in any way...IMHO, there is no reason for it.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/15sfisq/bambula...

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#278

Post by jchw » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:33 PM UTC

I bought a Bambu Lab printer recently, and made the decision that if I did connect it to LAN, I'd make damn sure that it did not have an Internet connection, even though there is a LAN mode toggle in the firmware it shipped with. Although I am definitely paranoid about Internet-of-Shit bait'n'switch techniques, at the time I was mostly thinking in terms of geopolitical bullshit rather than capitalistic shenanigans. No particular reason to distrust Bambu Lab themselves at the time, at least more than any other company.

Obviously, hingsight is 20:20, but it's just a reminder: your cynicism is warranted. Don't trust anyone any more than you absolutely have to.

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#279

Post by bdcravens » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:44 PM UTC

c0nsumer wrote: post #21

bdcravens wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They used a plugin to communicate print jobs (and other integrations), so that third party software could be used pretty seamlessly. Now they're moving to a new authentication model, and will be requiring users to send files to a separate print app. (Bambu Connect) It adds friction to the process, especially for those who were looking to run print jobs at scale, using "print farm" software or building their own solut…

I do wonder how much friction it'll really add, since the slicers can send the data to Connect via a protocol handler. It also means that Connect could act as a farm / queueing system as well, more like a print driver vs. individual printer support within the app.

I've tried the URL handler (the software is in beta). It only sends the print job (sliced file), it doesn't start it. You still have to assign it to the printer, etc, and press the start button.

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#280

Post by bdcravens » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:47 PM UTC

c0nsumer wrote: post #214

intothemild wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its pretty much this, nothing seems to be blocking any third party slicer like Orca from working with bambu printers as they are now.. just the print button would now send the file to Bambu Connect, where you would most likely only press an extra button.. Getting info from the printer or AMS? MQTT still works. They specifically said they are not touching that. Sadly the usual groups of people are screaming, and the o…

Did you happen to see this? Interesting development, they are basically going to keep the current wide-open-barely-auth'd state and call it a developer mode. And submitted a PR to make Orca Slicer work with the new auth: https://blog.bambulab.com/updates-and-third-party-integratio... And yeah, I'm realizing that about the downvotes. It's sad the state of things, but SKY-IS-FALLING-GET-PITCHFORKS wins the day over tec…

My understanding is that the "addition" of the developer mode (basically the current status quo) is the result of the feedback/pitchforking. I don't believe that was originally planned.