Maybe I’m just remembering this differently, but then again I was a little later to the party. The cloud computing aspect was right there in the front of my decision making, I didn’t feel like they tried to hide it at all, in fact, it felt more like they were trying to tout it as an advantage. As someone who lives in rural Texas, my internet is not always the best, so this was something I had to weigh, but in the end, I decided the risk was worth the potential reward. If I was that scared of the company going under or the machine being bricked in the first few years I would not have purchased in the first place. If it happens, lesson learned and I’ll probably be more skeptical of the next product, but I’m not going to sweat it right now or worry about a future that I can’t guarantee or even predict. I’m also not going to borrow trouble. Once the product is out we’ll see if Glowforge releases their FW and what that entails, I’m sure not going to argue about what’s missing when we haven’t seen it in the first place. There’s my two cents…no refunds accepted. 
which is great and how it should be but doesn’t invalidate those of us with different experiences and expectations
Not sure why you inferred that, but there was certainly nothing in my statement to indicate it. I’ve shared my experience. That is the end of it.
Maybe I’m just remembering this differently, but then again I was a little later to the party. The cloud computing aspect was right there in the front of my decision making, I didn’t feel like they tried to hide it at all, in fact, it felt more like they were trying to tout it as an advantage.
I ordered the thing on something like day 2, certainly within a few days of the opening. And there was a big flap when people realized that it wouldn’t work without an Internet connection, so I was definitely not the only person taken by surprise.
I’m sure they did start talking about it more after that. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they do think the cloud is an advantage in itself… probably because nowadays people don’t even consider better ways to get the same actual advantages that the cloud gives you. Anyway, if you’re selling the device, the cloud truly is mostly an advantage for you, so that colors your thinking.
If I was that scared of the company going under or the machine being bricked in the first few years
“First few years”? I’d be surprised if the tube lasted many years, especially in the non-Pro model. That’s not Glowforge’s fault and it’s not a defect in the product; that’s just the way these things work. And I doubt it will be worth replacing the tube in a first-generation device after it wears out, either. So I’ve never thought of this thing as having more than a few years of life, which is one reason I didn’t cancel. I just want to get that out of it, and be able to play with it.
I’m right there with you. At this point, I really am shocked that there isn’t an investigation into how $28M in product was sold in 30 days and here we are 2 years later with nothing.
I purchased this for my wife as a gift so she could start a nice side business creating custom engraved products on Shopify and Etsy. It’s a good thing it was for starting a side business and not maintaining a current one or we’d have closed up shop.
I’m still waiting, but I’ll never back another Shapiro backed project again - ever.
This indicates there is no plan for any future generation:
I Know a complete refund is available to you now if you are unhappy with this process. If you contact customer support, they can help you – then you could get a currently available laser unit…
I’m curious what you would hope to learn from such an investigation that you haven’t already been told. Is there something unclear to you about what’s been happening? I’d love to help fill in those blanks for you.
I’m pretty sure that they can select which machines get which updates. I know of at least one other cloud software provider that does that and it seems like a logical thing to build into the system. Maybe @dan can comment on that if he is so inclined.
Zero doubt that they will be able to selectively push the updates and the cloud S/W versions. Otherwise you couldn’t do Beta testing on any of the changes. Now whether they will allow any user version control I personally doubt but have nothing to base that opinion on.
This is exactly what started me down my maker-person path. Having a desire to just say “we have a problem, we can just make what we need right now.”
It’s in a way, a bit of the flair of replicators from a certain sci-fi series set 400~500 years from now that it draws from. Very fantastic indeed!
I’ll have to try to find it when I’m not on my phone, but @dan has already said somewhere that they currently run several different versions of their server, in house testing/beta/current release, etc. they just have to change the server the glow forge is connecting to.
That makes a lot of sense to me. Handling only one version per server would really simplify things for GF (especially customer support).
If all three solutions don’t run natively free of charge on Mac, PC or Linux it’s a deal breaker for me. For others it is one of the many things to weigh in about. For me it is the single most important factor. [quote=“jbash, post:96, topic:5986”]
I can think of three different non-cloud ways to support “different computing platforms”, at least two of which are actually reasonable to deploy. They are somewhat more costly than cloud computing.
[/quote]
running a webserver on embedded device controllers is extremely common, though, and you could even set it up to offer a hybrid cloud structure in order to minimize processing time when available.
not saying that they could or should have done this, just pointing out one way to remove the cloud restriction and maintain device intercompatibility.
If the replacement cost of a tube is hundreds of dollars every two or more years, that seems worthwhile to me. I paid almost NZD$5k for my (basic) laser; I’m not going to write that off after only one tube
Thanks Dan. This is a great update and shows the awesome capabilities we are growing to expect. Just FYI, I would be happy to test a GF unit until the production models arrive (hint, hint, nudge, nudge).
I need to spend some time in the forums to see what others are creating, but really enjoyed the trace function story for the Viola. That is what I was hoping for since first hearing about GF. Cannot wait til shipping.
<(")
I got Chilipeppr and a tinyg running with a raspberry pi and and it works great as I build out the electronics for a CNC. I don’t have a local clone of Chilipeppr `though. It does exactly that: cross platform web server solution. At the moment though it seems that the bigger they get it’s all Mach3 and more. I’d say not much longer and the open source solutions will be lots easier to install and use. At the moment the Glowforge does exactly what I want it to do with only the minimum of setting operation parameters on non-Proofgrade. I don’t have to think at all about which platform I’m using nor make any adjustments or downloads to anything I’m using. I can’t say that about a new Ricoh/Aficio laser printer which is still drying to get the Windows 10 drivers right to process envelopes from the bypass tray.
We have a variety of stages of development - on a developers’ machine, feature flags, QA, staging, and production to name a few. I don’t know offhand which features are at which stage, but some improvements have definitely gone public and others are definitely still in the pipeline.