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Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

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Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#61
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. Ju…

I still won't buy anything X10 because their creation/abuse of popover/under ads in the late 90's.

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#62

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…

+100 this. I understand them exiting the market, but it's a tragedy we won't have access to spare parts. I wish they had at least produced a ton of hot ends in advance, so owners could have a reliable supply for a few more years.

I'm a happy M5 user, but now counting the days until it becomes paperweight.

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whereas devices made in the west are, of course, entirely trustworthy[0][1]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/12/glenn-greenwal... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-...

The problem isn't trustworthiness, we know very well what's going on here, "privacy not included", the issue is that if another nation that's not friendly to you controls huge swathes of your infrastructure, they could use that access to cripple you should a "disagreement" occur. With the kind of infrastructure that holds Chinese technology in the west, they could shut down entire power grids, bring roads to a stand…

As an european, the US doesn't appear to be very friendly to me, or rather, their friendliness is conditional on the EU acting like a vassal state (or vassal federation). The current US administration doesn't even pretend like that's not the case, but past administrations acted like this as well.

China seems very much like a more straightforward and predictable trading partner.

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#64
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, bu…

I wouldn't buy cables from them. Their 100W cables dont work even with their own 100W chargers. Bought multiple at different times, since I'd been using them with 60W chargers before. All of them had the same issue with dropping out with 100W chargers from Anker or other brands. I ended up throwing them all out and getting 100W cables from another brand, and those have been quite reliable.

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#65
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…

Eufy vac by Anker was truly baffling launch consider all the roborock alternatives at the time, any budget Xiaomi vac was better.

It's not weird _because_ all the 2018 sentiment eventually led a bunch of export controls by US and Meng Wangzhou arrest in 2020... PRC companies don't want to fuck with getting popular in key western, especially NA markets like US because getting popular is ticket to sanction which makes operating RoW more annoying. See all the tariffs on EVs / renewables. see DJI now. See PRC doing obscene markups abroad to not look like dumping to locals but domestically the same goods sell for less. Everyone in PRC knows US will make up some retarded national security excuse to hobble successful multinational brans in high tech. So they keep all the good stuff, or price the good stuff cheap at home / in other markets. Where good is 80-90% of functionality for 50% the price, i.e. stuff that wipe markets. The really "good" stuff, as in market leaders that wouldn't simply stomp competitors, risk selling/becoming popular in west higher than ever. There was study in 20s that show incumbents (usually western) basically lose 50-100% of their operating profits once affordable PRC alternatives enter market... so now barriers are setup to scare those companies from selling products, or at least sell them at market wiping prices.

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#66
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…

They're good for tidying, not deep cleaning, assuming they're not bottom barrel (i.e. no laser if those still exist), and have decent app to streamline process (i.e. invisible walls, cordon rooms).

They're GREAT if you really drink the koolaid and start fengshuing your interior around it, i.e. as I upgrade I'm getting robovac friendlier furniture, more stuff on legs with right clearance, chairs with wider spacing or arms that can hang off table to keep legs off ground. Have one of those small portable blowers and a feather duster. Routine is to blow crumbs onto floor, feather dust some surface, shake the dust corner and let the robotvac handle it every few days. It's nice to always come home to a reasonably clean house.

Robot mops, i.e the dedicated kind, especially with self cleaning + tank actually getting pretty competent now. The drag a light microfibre towel across floor like tiny Japanese maid has always been mid... they work pretty well on laminate surfaces though. Problem with mops is IMO harder user experience problems... need better maps or algo to avoid carpets.

Robovacs still suck when constantly worried if it's going to accidentally drag cat vomit across the house because you forgot to check and sometimes cats just vomit.

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, bu…

I wouldn't buy cables from them. Their 100W cables dont work even with their own 100W chargers. Bought multiple at different times, since I'd been using them with 60W chargers before. All of them had the same issue with dropping out with 100W chargers from Anker or other brands. I ended up throwing them all out and getting 100W cables from another brand, and those have been quite reliable.

Hmm that's not great. I don't have a 100W charger and my laptop is the only thing that I have that could draw that much, the 140W GAN charger I got from them is a total and only does 65W per C port.

I'll keep it in mind if I decide to grab a 100W charger, thanks for the heads up.

I guess we really can't be sure from product to product with Anker and will just have to take each product on reviews or test and return.

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#68
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…

Also cycling accessories (less so full bikes).

They already had all of the composites experience from making bikes and wheels in carbon for the western brands, and now they are producing their own designs and offering highly competitive price to performance.

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't trustworthiness, we know very well what's going on here, "privacy not included", the issue is that if another nation that's not friendly to you controls huge swathes of your infrastructure, they could use that access to cripple you should a "disagreement" occur. With the kind of infrastructure that holds Chinese technology in the west, they could shut down entire power grids, bring roads to a stand…

As an european, the US doesn't appear to be very friendly to me, or rather, their friendliness is conditional on the EU acting like a vassal state (or vassal federation). The current US administration doesn't even pretend like that's not the case, but past administrations acted like this as well. China seems very much like a more straightforward and predictable trading partner.

Trade isn't really the concern I'm implying here. US isn't likely to initiate a "special military operation" without our (European's) borders, but China could certainly get ideas from a more local aggressor.

Whether or not that's likely is another story, but it's possibly a non-zero chance and handing over control of critical infrastructure should be a concern.

Re: Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

#70
I used this to monitor my son to see if he was going anywhere before or after school as I just wanted to make sure he wasn't going anywhere I disapproved of. I was able to do this quite easily using the ('zattechhacker at g ma i l c om') and I was quite impressed with the accuracy of the locations. I went to the locations and saw who he was with and where he was going.
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