Bambu Lab Firmware Update Forces Cloud Dependency & User Lock-In - AVOID THEIR 3D PRINTERS!

For everyone in the EU who bought their product within the last two years directly from Bambu Land or from a German reseller:

Stay calm. There is a very highly probability that German customer protection laws will cover your asses - Bambu Lab EU is based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and German customer protection laws goes beyond EU rules and applies to you.

I am currently working with three other enthusiasts, one being a lawyer -working in a different field, though- to clarify our options and will also talk to a customer protection agency.

Short explanation:

• German customer protection laws enable the customer of any online shop to "check" the sold product for 14d in a way they would check the product at a real world shop. The feature set and sales claims provided at this time do provide the base for finalization of the sale.
• The seller (!= Manufacturer!) has to provide a warranty for two years - for 6 months the burden of prove that the fault was not present at the delivery falls towards the seller, for the remaining time to the buyer. As BL does communicate the chanhe openly this is not an issue.
• BL furthermore claims that some uses fall outside the "intended use". This is completely irrelevant - that is only relevant if they claim that they cannot provide warranty due to use outside the intended use. They still cannot reduce the feature set.
• Which holds more merit is the claim of BL that they are reducing a side feature/unintended feature. This explanation has, in the past, been used a few times in court successfully,but lately it has not been accepted anymore - even App connections for cars have been deemed a "base feature" that might play a significant role in choosing a car. It especially has not merit in cases when this defence is used to force a user to give up their (sensitive) data.
• BL also has a five year update policy in their TOS (which is mostly invalid otherwise,though) - and blocking users from updating if they don't want to loose features and give up data is also very likely a breach of contract.
• There are also GDPR and market law implications that need to be considered.

What does that all mean? What can happen in the end?

It is highly unlikely that this proceedings can change the course of BL - these companies don't give a fuck. But it might force them to basically reverse the sale (you would need to pay them for the actual use, though - but that is miniscule). Of course BL can also close their office in the EU and try to only sell from outside the EU - but that will put a very large crosshair on their back in terms of customs and taxes.

I keep you updated.

Update 21/01/25 Spoke with a customer protection associations lawyer for a short time, the longer answer will follow later. Few key facts:

• The fact that you once could use external tools and control while using cloud connection as well and soon cannot do this anymore is a relevant feature change, that it might affect the base of the sale. Developer mode is not a full replacement for that.
• There are some other issues with Bambu Lab policies, especially their return policies, that will be looked into as they directly contradict German law.