Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers | Hacker News Reader

Anker is no longer selling 3D Printers

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50 pointsgeerlingguy71 comments

TIL Anker was selling 3D printers...

Yeah, I had no idea...and maybe that was the problem too.

It was selling white labeled junk, same as Monoprice and lots of other brands who want to be in the space without putting in any actual effort.

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 replace a few times due to accidentally breaking the screws when changing nozzles. (It was a poor design of the original hot end where the very thin, long screws did not have the shear strength in aluminum to not break when accidentally torquing the nozzle head. This was fixed with the all-metal hot end, which is not ideal for all filaments.)

Despite my issue with the hot end (which I believe could easily be fixed with an updated design), and the nearly useless "AI" feature, I feel like this printer was a great value at the time. It's very well built, looks great, and very reliable. I really enjoy every opportunity I have to use it and do not regret my purchase decision at all.

I'm saddened that they seem to be pulling out of the market, even though it makes sense compared to the competition. It really seemed like they had a promising start. If this is truly the end, then RIP with positive sentiments from me.

> 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 them in a landfill.

There was a time I thought 3D printers would break free from the 'every part is proprietary' industry of 2D printers, where you have cheap disposable hardware and people are incentivized to buy new printers frequently to replace dodgy old equipment.

But outside of the passionate Voron community and a few companies who still have at least some of the community/repairability-first ethos, it seems the wider industry is moving towards proprietary hardware, even to the point of blocking out (or at least making difficult) 3rd party accessories, mods, and community software.

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!

+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.

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 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.

Got a lot of recalls going though.

They were caught lying about it being local, https://gizmodo.com/eufy-local-security-camera-cloud-unencry..., so your concern is not unreasonable.

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 over every aspect of the country. They have capitalistic facets because communism doesn't work on it's own, but trust that the authority system is totalitarian, and if they want spyware in your product while you lie about it, there will be spyware in your product and you will lie about it.

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...

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 still, shut down entire countries worth of networking, cellular networks and worse. This is leaving out the surveillance and data collection potential as it's not the topic at hand.

To be clear, my issue isn't with China specifically, but as a westerner, they're not a friendly nation (to mine).

The same of course applies the other way around, and I can imagine a scenario of other citizens sitting in their respective nation having this same conversation about western technology.

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.

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 does pretty well at keeping our dog's hair at bay, but it misses a lot of fine dirt and sand.

That's their purpose right?

"The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is the day they start making vacuums"

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.

Yep, my $150 Amazon warehouse deals Eufy picks up about two large handfuls of cat hair daily if I run it consistently and more if I run it every few days. And this is one medium sized shorthair cat I comb regularly!

I’ve only needed to replace consumables like the little side brush and roller brush and the cheap Amazon knockoff brands work fine for me.

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.

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 they became mid-tier market players.

The jury's still out on cars, but my suspicion is they're going to be far less dominant than the doomsayers predict.

The only 2 exceptions to this are dji, and Bambulab, their products are without peer.

> The jury's still out on cars, but my suspicion is they're going to be far less dominant than the doomsayers predict.

Electric Vehicles? Chinese firms are crushing that market. They're well positioned to own the medium-term future of cars and similar vehicles.

No they are not, the only Western market I could find where they have significant penetration is in Australia. Places like the UK have no tariffs on Chinese EVs, and no domestic industry to protect, yet Chinese cars are barely in the top 10.

You're mistaking "on top now" for "well positioned to be on top in the medium-term future". They're not the same.

I hadn't heard of any Chinese EVs as recently as 3 years ago. That they're already in the top 10 in the West is incredible.

Roborock is the market leader for robotic vacuum cleaners at the moment. irobot was asleep at the wheel for like a decade.

> 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 in the UK are MG EVs, which for some unknown reason some of my fellow Brits have some sort of affinity to as a brand.

I wouldn't dream of buying a JAECOO or BYD and everything I've seen online about their EVs absolutely suggest some at least morally dubious tactics, not to say the likely of VW haven't also had their hands slapped, but let's see how their fair mid term.

Side note: Recently got a DJI drone, have had some of their other camera related non-drone stuff, the thing is absolutely nuts for the price, DJI really are unrivalled.

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.

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.

I've also seen a lot of JAECOO vehicles which look like a rip off of Range Rover's styling.

I think JAECOO are part of the same group as Omoda / Chery.

I have no idea if I should have listed it separately or not.

Oh interesting, I had no idea.

I've really not looked too much into Chinese EVs beyond some YouTube channels talking about some of their sketchy tactics to incentivise "influencers" and presumably subsidies to get to the kinds of prices they're selling at in the UK.

I wouldn't consider buying any of them so all I really know is what I see on the streets.

Infrastructure is still lacking in the UK, and not everyone has the possibility of charging at home, but the Chinese EVs are the only ones not reaching into luxury vehicle price territory (and the associated costs) in the UK.

If the pace of EV sales picks up (and I'm not convinced it will soon), it's hard to see Chinese EVs at the prices they are, not becoming extremely popular.

What could turn it around, is, as you say, terrible reliability records, but even then, that didn't seem to stop people buying ICE cars, so I'm not sure how much of an effect it'll have here either. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

> Chinese EVs are the only ones not reaching into luxury vehicle price territory (and the associated costs) in the UK.

I didn't mention Polestar until now, as they don't sell in volume, although I do see some of their vehicles on the roads.

But they do fit this bracket of "(mostly) Chinese EVs, in the luxury vehicle territory".

Arguably also Volvo. Or even top models from Zeekr and Xiaomi.

If you're talking impractically high-end cars, look out for MG Cyberster, BYD Yangwang U9.

I guess they're covering every segment.

I've not seen any of those higher end models myself, I'd be curious to know what kind of numbers they're selling in here versus, let's say, European high-end EVs.

I didn't mention Polestar myself either as I'm undecided whether they fit into the "Chinese brands" category; they are Chinese now but I wonder what if any influence Volvo still has on them and if so, what effect that might have on their quality and reliability; perhaps it's "none", but I see Polestar as a brand that would be a more likely purchase because of its Volvo heritage.

I've never seen a Zeekr or Xiaomi vehicle here in the UK, not sure if they're on sale here (yet).

> I've never seen a Zeekr or Xiaomi vehicle here in the UK, not sure if they're on sale here (yet).

I don't think Zeekr or Xiaomi are on sale in the UK. Yet.

But they will be.

> The one exception I'd say in the UK are MG EVs, which for some unknown reason some of my fellow Brits have some sort of affinity to as a brand.

I have news for you about MG, it's been a Chinese company for almost 20 years now.

That's the implication I was making; I know they're Chinese that's why I raised them, my point is, people are buying them presumably on brand recognition (the exception in that list), which is beyond me because I would _not_ buy an MG (Chinese or otherwise).

"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.

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.

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.

I have 2 x Omni X10 Pros and they're very good. No problems at all so far. I have all hard wood flooring though, I don't think they would be great on carpet.

What was the problem? I thought my Eufy was excellent when I had it. It was one of the blind models, where it would seemingly wander around randomly, but it wasn't actually random. It may miss a spot on one pass but would usually get the spot on the next run.

I've since upgraded to a Dreame with lidar and mopping that actually maps my place. It also has a Home Assistant integration so it can be automated and scheduled. But my original Eufy kept my old apartment floor in great shape.

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?

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

What is a good robovac?

https://archive.ph/J1ti7

Thank you!

They unfortunately released at an unfortunate time. Bambulab became widely successful at the same time and just ate up the market. Anker printers would have been a hot sell otherwise.

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.

I think their gambit has more been "power", being battery packs, chargers, cables, etc. They are technically not a battery tech company, they assemble 3rd party batteries into consumer products.

The Apple of power packs?

There is a market for that, if they manage to design their devices properly and avoid safety issues in the future. A brand that people could trust would have value, if the customers were reasonable confident to get well-designed batteries, PV panels or adaptors without worrying too much about the quality of the components inside.

I know I’d rather pay a small premium to get good hardware than gamble with bargain bin no-names on Amazon. That being said I am not sure they are quite there. I’ve never had any issue with their chargers but the string of batteries recalls is not encouraging.

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.

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.

The fact that they do product recalls should bias you in favour of them. Other brands simply don't do them at all, and the reason is not because nothing ever goes wrong with them.

Battery business is cutthroat and there's already more reliable and better performing alternatives to Anker (CIO for instance, Aohi is also getting there). And brands like Ugreen are going after the "household name" slot as well.

Diversifying is a pretty existential in that market IMHO.

Your comment is the kind of MBA-school nonsense that destroys companies because they can't get one thing (anything) right. There are people who are willing to pay for good quality and capacity, who don't want the cheap $20 battery. Anker's bigger higher-quality batteries have had no recalls.

The Zolo 20.000mAh model just got recalled, so not exactly true.

I would not consider 20000 mAh to be high end. Consider Anker's laptop power bank with 25000 mAh, and there are similar models.

This happened because cell vendor Amprius changed the battery design and did not notify the power bank manufacturers.

Hardly seems an Anker issue.

I never claimed it was, just that they did have a recall. Also see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44723508

The names don't seem to resonate to you. CIO is a japanese company specialized in batteries, chargers and charging cables, and they're consistantly outranking Anker in third party tests. And their products usually cost more than the equivalent Anker ones.

https://connectinternationalone.co.jp/

Aohi is in a similar niche, but with more attention to design and high capacity models

https://iaohi.com/

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.

I was disappointed by this but not super surprised, we did the kickstarter (or whatever platform they used, I don't remember) for the original ankermake thinking that Anker was a company that stood by their products and this would be great.

It was at a good time that we were looking at getting a new printer, and had high hopes.

While the printer itself was decent, it just felt like they really bit off more than they could chew and really should not have entered the market. It did not take long for us to regret getting it, having a ton of issues with it, and now barely use it since it just almost always ends in annoyance.

A part that’s typically simple to produce became the strategic bottleneck that ended the product line.

But hey, they could use mine for free.:)

https://voxleone.com/2024/03/05/3d-printing-im-making-a-500c...

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