CES 2021 is coming up next week, and I wondered if any 3D printing companies are still exhibiting at that event.
CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, is the world’s largest gadget event, where tens of thousands of exhibitors display their products the crowds upwards of 200,000 individuals.
Or at least that’s how it used to be.
This year CES has “gone digital”, like so many other in-person events. It’s the first time for CES, as last year’s event, which we did not attend, took place just before the — well, when things happened.
Fabbaloo used to regularly attend this event, as it was one of the premiere venues for new 3D printing announcements. That’s because in the early 2010s MakerBot decided their 3D printers were “consumer devices” and thus this show was an appropriate platform for announcements.
Their presence rapidly attracted a number of other 3D printing companies who sought to gain the attention of the same media MakerBot worked with. At one point there were certainly well over 100 3D print exhibitors, so many that CES granted the technology its own section in the innovation hall.
However, after MakerBot’s sale to Stratasys their interest in the show faded, and they disappeared. Subsequently the number of 3D print participants dropped significantly, and the last year we attended, 2018, there were only two dozen exhibitors of interest. We have not attended since, and CES has even relegated the few remaining exhibitors to the back of one of the older halls, very far from the “innovation” areas. It’s not a good place to exhibit 3D printers anymore.
In spite of those circumstances, several companies persist in exhibiting at CES. While we are not planning on attending, I was curious to know which 3D print organizations are still exhibiting at the show in 2021.
I wandered through CES’s not-particulary-easy website and found their exhibitor directory, which lists the presumably thousands of exhibitors that will portray their offerings digitally this year. While the search function was pretty terrible, I managed to identify a short list of 3D print companies at CES 2021.
Creality is exhibiting, no doubt showing off their new belt 3D printer, the 3DPrintMill / CR-30. It may be they hope it could become a consumer item, or perhaps be noticed by mass media as an unusual product to feature.
SnapMaker has been at CES previously, and they return again. They produce a modular device that is a 3D printer, laser engraver and CNC mill all in one unit.
UNIZ was a company we first saw at CES some years ago when they launched their very speedy resin 3D printer line.
Formlabs has always been at CES since I first met them way back in 2013.
Anycubic produces a line of low-cost resin and FFF 3D printers.
Raise3D’s professional series of 3D printers are able to use many different engineering materials, and they offer a sophisticated cloud platform from which to run them.
BIQU is perhaps best known for their 3D printer components, but they also produce 3D printers of their own.
Yidimu produces the Falcon series of resin 3D printers.
Kallion is a company I’m not familiar with, but they produce a one-click 3D scanning solution.
3DiTEX is a French company that apparently has a device that can produce 3D textiles in different materials. I’ll be investigating them further.
That’s all I found so far: only ten related companies. This seems to continue the downward trend of 3D print’s appearance at CES.
However, this year the event is entirely online and it’s possible you can make contact with these or other companies at the show.
Via CES
