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Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

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Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#31

Post by alias_neo »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #20
sanex wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also bought the eufy home security system and it's pretty trash but I'm in it now. The video doorbell is solid to be fair but the whole thing is so slow I question it being local. I think you really need to separate the brands because the power banks are still the best.

The single most important thing to understand about Chinese brands is that in China, party members sit on the board of these companies. And those party members can dictate action as they see fit. You can take them to the kangaroo court if you like, but people generally don't voluntarily waste time. People think that China is USA 2.0. It's not. It's a communist state with a single ruling party with unilateral control…

We've already heard that there are kill switches in Solar PV equipment[0], networks with Chinese brands are to be considered compromised[1], I'm certain we can assume the same for Chinese brand EVs having remote control and/or kill switches.

It's interesting to see the non-response from governments over it so far; though there was recently rumours of an MoD ban on Chinese EVs but that seems to have been shot down[2] so far.

[0]https://londondaily.com/u-s-concerns-mount-over-chinese-kill... [1]https://www.itpro.com/security/cyber-attacks/all-us-forces-m... [2]https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-confirms-no-mod-ban-on-ch...

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#32

Post by alias_neo »

bluGill wrote: post #17
OutOfHere wrote: post #6

Anker should focus on its core business which is batteries. Recently they had multiple safety recalls for batteries. If they can't get batteries right anymore, which is their core business, they can't conceivably get anything else right.

Afaik they have always been a marketing company putting their name on no-name chinese stuff they didn't design. They did earn some points for checking on quality and not just branding anything, and sometimes paid for better engineering if good couldn't be found - this is valuable of course.

This has been my experience, and I've found the price seems to reasonably reflect the quality one can expect.

I've had a few Anker power related devices, those pushing £100+ seem to be of better quality, I recently bought a new GAN charger for ~£80 and it's decent, but I also bought a 20000 mAh power bank on sale for ~£15 and it was one of the recalled models.

Their cables generally seem to be pretty reliable too, but I draw the line at "accessories" and wouldn't buy anything "intelligent" from them, cameras, other IoT devices etc.

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#33

Post by vel0city »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #14
bsimpson wrote: post #7

My Eufy (by Anker) robovac is such a piece of shit that it sullied the Anker brand for me. I used to expect anything they made to be good by default. Now, it's the opposite.

I think all Robovacs still kind of suck. We bought a mid-tier Roborock and it's been, meh. * The "mop" function is pretty much useless. It's very good at creating a thin layer of grime across our entire house. It basically just pushes grime from the high traffic areas of the high into the lower areas. Even with an aggressive setting for "mop cleaning", it just doesn't get clean. * The vacuum function is okay-ish. It…

I can't speak to the mop function, I've never had a robo mop.

I've had robot vacuums for about a decade now. Originally a Botvac, now a Shark. They're not a complete vacuum replacement, I've never had one always able to get every corner perfectly and get all the deeper dust and what not. What they do well is control all the animal hair in my home. There's a lot of shedding in my house, I'd have to spend time vacuuming every other day or there would be hair everywhere.

Plus two kids, lots of random crumbs and what not. Nice to be able to just open the app and say "clean this room" and then go back to spending time with the kids instead of taking the time to vacuum myself.

Having the robot run every other day means I can just do a deeper vacuum clean once a month or so but still have generally very clean floors day to day. Not a complete replacement in the end though.

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#34

Post by skeeterbug »

bsimpson wrote: post #7

My Eufy (by Anker) robovac is such a piece of shit that it sullied the Anker brand for me. I used to expect anything they made to be good by default. Now, it's the opposite.

We have had the X10 Pro Omni for a bit over a year now and we have been enjoying it. A mix of hardwood/carpet. I have it mop 3 times a week and vacuum alternate days. The mopping has been good. I change out the mop pads and blow out the filter once a week. The vacuum is OK, nothing compared to an upright, but it keeps dog hair manageable. If we only wanted vacuuming, I would have probably chosen a different brand.

Just curious, what issues have you had?

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#36

Post by torginus »

alias_neo wrote: post #26
torginus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird how since like the 2018ish, the West has been holding its collective breath about how 'high-tech Chinese product X' is going to wipe out local markets by offering the same stuff cheaper and better. We've seen this mentioned with smartphones, laptops, various electronics accessories, household stuff, and most recently cars. Interestingly, this stuff never seemed to catch on, the best they usually managed is…

> The jury's still out on cars I don't know if it's just anecdotal, but I see a LOT of Chinese EVs in the England lately. Obviously nobody is buying them based on brand recognition or any sort of quality belief, brands nobody has heard of until now can only be on our streets in the numbers I'm seeing because they're significantly cheaper than buying something from a known auto manufacturer. The one exception I'd say…

I dug around the internet, trying to find some sales stats. This list is for EVs: https://www.vehiclecontracts.co.uk/blog/best-selling-electri... This is for gas cars: https://www.parkers.co.uk/car-news/bestselling-cars/

Both lists have single MG vehicle, so they aren't doing terribly, but based on this, it's hard to conclude they're going to conquer the market. And this is with the UK, which has no tariffs on Chinese EVs.

My prediction is that MG is going to fall off the next couple years, considering their reliability has been terrible, according to stats. Even if they fix the issues, they're going to get a reputation and it's a long way back from that.

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#37

Post by big_toast »

torginus wrote: post #16
bsimpson wrote: post #7

My Eufy (by Anker) robovac is such a piece of shit that it sullied the Anker brand for me. I used to expect anything they made to be good by default. Now, it's the opposite.

It's weird how since like the 2018ish, the West has been holding its collective breath about how 'high-tech Chinese product X' is going to wipe out local markets by offering the same stuff cheaper and better. We've seen this mentioned with smartphones, laptops, various electronics accessories, household stuff, and most recently cars. Interestingly, this stuff never seemed to catch on, the best they usually managed is…

"This stuff never seemed to catch on."

A little confused. In the US, Volvo EVs are pretty popular (80% owned by Geely). Tencent owns most of Riot Games and a large stake in Epic Games. The GE appliances division is I think fully owned by Haier. Hisense and TCL TVs sell pretty well.

There's roborock (vacuums), Insta360 (that and DJI crushed GoPro?), Hikvision cameras, Segway-Ninebot mobility and other odd ones, TP-Link networking, TerraMaster for storage, BeeLink computers seem to be taking off.

Nothing is wiping out local markets here, but to think it isn't catching on seems too strong a statement.

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#39

Post by paulirwin »

geerlingguy wrote: post #30
paulirwin wrote: post #24

It seems like everyone is dog-piling on Anker over this, so I'd like to put forward a bit more positive of a take. I have a M5 that I got through the original Kickstarter campaign. I love this printer. I use it casually, but I rarely have a failed print that I can't attribute to i.e. poorly chosen supports. Almost all of the parts on it are still original and working well, apart from the hot end that I've had to repl…

> The hot end that I've had to replace a few times due to accidentally breaking the screws when changing nozzles. (It was a poor design of the original hot end...) That bit was highlighted in the article, though, as one of the more annoying aspects of Anker pulling out of the market. It's likely if your hot end fails again, you'll suddenly have 10 lbs of useless 3D printer to deal with. Most people will just toss the…

Yeah, agreed. Anker, if you're reading this - please open source the printer hardware/parts and software if you're truly pulling out of the market!

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#40

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

torginus wrote: post #36
alias_neo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The jury's still out on cars I don't know if it's just anecdotal, but I see a LOT of Chinese EVs in the England lately. Obviously nobody is buying them based on brand recognition or any sort of quality belief, brands nobody has heard of until now can only be on our streets in the numbers I'm seeing because they're significantly cheaper than buying something from a known auto manufacturer. The one exception I'd say…

I dug around the internet, trying to find some sales stats. This list is for EVs: https://www.vehiclecontracts.co.uk/blog/best-selling-electri... This is for gas cars: https://www.parkers.co.uk/car-news/bestselling-cars/ Both lists have single MG vehicle, so they aren't doing terribly, but based on this, it's hard to conclude they're going to conquer the market. And this is with the UK, which has no tariffs on Chines…

And my prediction is that in the UK EV market, MG and Volvo are the thin edge of the wedge of Chinese cars.

BYD are on the roads now, and Omoda, soon to be followed by Zeekr, XPeng, Nio and Xiaomi. How well MG does specifically is irrelevant to all that, but your suggestion seems wishful - they have several new models out this year.

Tesla's brand reputation is in a ditch, and the big EU brands are struggling to keep up.

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