2. If you have a laptop, and a 13 hour print, you shouldn't need to have it tethered during the whole print. Many repraps don't even have SD card readers.
3. Why are we still tethering and transferring files physically? This is 2015.
4. Processing toolpaths on your PC means that your results will vary based on which PC you are using. And the majority of users won't get the performance that you could get by just sharing cloud server resources.
5. The PC requirement also severely limits your ability to access data about your machine, and integrations into other services.
Now that my 3D printer is driven from the cloud, I don't need to worry about slicer updates, driver updates, or hardware performance. My machine operates as a service that I can access and control from anywhere.
In summary, using the cloud for toolpath generation untethers us from the machine, removes the manual labour, enables mobile usage, and allows these machines to integrate into other services.
I disagree with these points on some general levels, even though for this particular product at this particular price point I can see the raionale somewhat:
1) Consumers might be moving away from desktops, but I don't know that creators are so much yet. However I think that's a moot point - desktop, laptop, tablet, whatever. It's not about form factor it's about computing power and it wouldn't surprise me if the latest iPad Pro or even top-end smartphone had the computing power to do these calculations locally.
2) My 3D Printing Systems UP Mini does the heavy lifting on my local PC and then sends that data off to the printer where the printer stores it in memory. Once the print job is sent off and the printer starts going, there's no longer any need for the PC - you can shut the PC down and leave the printer going.
3) Easily solved with a local Wi-Fi connection. Printers (the paper kind) have had this problem solved for ages now. There was no complicated setup for my cheap printer with Wi-Fi; my desktop just found it.
4) Job queue time may vary sure, but once it's sent to the printer it shouldn't matter.
5) This isn't all-or-nothing. What's stopping this from being an optional feature?
"Now that my 3D printer is driven from the cloud...." That doesn't preclude core functionality being available locally. It does mean that if this start-up doesn't succeed, you'll be left with an expensive paperweight until someone writes open backend firmware.
I really love the idea of this product and I can see how cloud connection can be a real enabler (look at what it's done for voice recognition on low-power devices, for example). I'm just really sceptical of this type of cloud-connected device as a general good thing for consumers - there are both good and bad sides to this. We really do need to be asking these questions and getting proper answers and assurances that as consumers we're getting something that's of benefit to us and that we won't be abandoned.
These points should be in a top level comment. There are some very good reasons for running a printer from a cloud based service. It solves more problems that it causes.
Comments
3d printers (i.e. RepRap) do the same only the "work" is done by the user's PC.
1. Consumers are moving away from desktop PCs
2. If you have a laptop, and a 13 hour print, you shouldn't need to have it tethered during the whole print. Many repraps don't even have SD card readers.
3. Why are we still tethering and transferring files physically? This is 2015.
4. Processing toolpaths on your PC means that your results will vary based on which PC you are using. And the majority of users won't get the performance that you could get by just sharing cloud server resources.
5. The PC requirement also severely limits your ability to access data about your machine, and integrations into other services.
Now that my 3D printer is driven from the cloud, I don't need to worry about slicer updates, driver updates, or hardware performance. My machine operates as a service that I can access and control from anywhere.
In summary, using the cloud for toolpath generation untethers us from the machine, removes the manual labour, enables mobile usage, and allows these machines to integrate into other services.
I disagree with these points on some general levels, even though for this particular product at this particular price point I can see the raionale somewhat:
1) Consumers might be moving away from desktops, but I don't know that creators are so much yet. However I think that's a moot point - desktop, laptop, tablet, whatever. It's not about form factor it's about computing power and it wouldn't surprise me if the latest iPad Pro or even top-end smartphone had the computing power to do these calculations locally.
2) My 3D Printing Systems UP Mini does the heavy lifting on my local PC and then sends that data off to the printer where the printer stores it in memory. Once the print job is sent off and the printer starts going, there's no longer any need for the PC - you can shut the PC down and leave the printer going.
3) Easily solved with a local Wi-Fi connection. Printers (the paper kind) have had this problem solved for ages now. There was no complicated setup for my cheap printer with Wi-Fi; my desktop just found it.
4) Job queue time may vary sure, but once it's sent to the printer it shouldn't matter.
5) This isn't all-or-nothing. What's stopping this from being an optional feature?
"Now that my 3D printer is driven from the cloud...." That doesn't preclude core functionality being available locally. It does mean that if this start-up doesn't succeed, you'll be left with an expensive paperweight until someone writes open backend firmware.
I really love the idea of this product and I can see how cloud connection can be a real enabler (look at what it's done for voice recognition on low-power devices, for example). I'm just really sceptical of this type of cloud-connected device as a general good thing for consumers - there are both good and bad sides to this. We really do need to be asking these questions and getting proper answers and assurances that as consumers we're getting something that's of benefit to us and that we won't be abandoned.
These points should be in a top level comment. There are some very good reasons for running a printer from a cloud based service. It solves more problems that it causes.