Prusa Research introduced a new consumer-friendly feature called “EasyPrint” that marks a significant step for the company.
What is EasyPrint? It is a cloud-based service that allows operators to competently prepare and dispatch 3D print jobs from a mobile device, like a smartphone or tablet.
I say “competently”, because there are plenty of mobile apps to control 3D printers. The problem is that they tend to be challenging to use and offer only limited functionality.
Many mobile 3D print apps let you select a pre-sliced job from a repository and send it to a 3D printer. But what if you want to slice it with different parameters? Or perhaps it was sliced for a printer model you don’t have? Or maybe you want to add a couple of other items into the job?
That’s the problem with today’s mobile slicing for 3D printers. It’s very inflexible. This can also be extremely confusing for newbies, who often assume things will work — but they may not.
Enter EasyPrint, a new feature from Prusa Research. This tool provides a clean mobile interface to a proper cloud-based slicing service. You can overcome all of the problems stated above, and much more.
The goal of Prusa Research is to simplify the operation of their equipment for the growing consumer 3D printing market. If it is required to use complex desktop slicing apps that offer “all possible parameters”, that will certainly chop off a huge chunk of the market. In fact, there are plenty of people today that don’t really have a desktop or laptop computer and operate from a tablet or even just a smartphone.
How are those people supposed to 3D print?
With EasyPrint. It’s billed as a streamlined interface that keeps to just the features required to properly operate the machines. This leaves open the possibility of advanced users reverting to desktop slicers if required for complex slicing scenarios.
This makes a huge amount of sense for Prusa Research. They are currently in a battle with a number of Asian manufacturers that have drastically undercut price points. However, the weak point of these companies is their software environments, which tend to be extraordinarily confusing, missing features, and often riddled with advertising and point features that clutter up everything.
It may be that Prusa Research can capture more of the consumer market by offering EasyPrint, since it should overcome much of the actual difficulties of using Asian equipment.
This is analogous to the education market: schools buy 3D printers not because they are cheap, but because they come with educational content and programs that make them instantly useful.
EasyPrint should make Prusa 3D printers instantly useful as well.
Josef Prusa also said this:
“The app is designed to run all the PrusaSlicer-derived slicers (Orca, BambuStudio, and loads of others) on the back end interchangeably. So I will tease a little bit that we plan to open this to even non-Prusa 3D printer users in the future. Of course, the time frame is not set in stone because we need to get all the information from testing and we need to be sure everything is stable after we onboard all the Prusa users. Printables are meant to be for everyone. We do not want to make any walled garden. Actually, quite the opposite – we want 3D printing to be easier for everyone.”
This is very interesting, as it could be that Prusa Research captures a chunk of the slicing market via EasyPrint in the future. Where that could lead is anyone’s guess, but seeing activity on other 3D printers is obviously good for the company.
As of this moment, EasyPrint is in beta release by invitation only. The company has seeded a “few hundred” initial users, who are then allowed to invite others. There’s also a form whereby anyone can request an invitation. However, it is limited to only 100 first-comers, so it’s almost certainly filled by now.
EasyPrint looks like a very strategic move for Prusa Research, and if successful, it could very likely affect how other companies offer slicing services.
Via Prusa Research
