Okay so I just purchased my first laser cutter, the Glowforge Aura. While it was an investment in itself, I had NO idea they would also have a SAS you had to pay for with their “premium” subscription. Which seems really overpriced and gives you basic options for designing. It’s my own fault for not researching it fully, but my question is, do I have to have it? The only thing I really want to do is cut out fabric shapes, and engrave things like an iPad, or cutting board etc.
I’ve currently been placing a drawn pattern piece into the glowforge, scanning it and choosing outline to go on my merry way. So if you have a good option for doing that outside of this SUPER PREMIUM EXTRA SPECIAL FEATURE let me know (Sarcasam…but I’m just a bit flustered)
It’s just hard to think you spent $1000 on a machine and filter and then right off the bat they want you to spend yet another $300, and then again every year just to use their software. It feels scammy in a way, but I’m hoping I will hear how easy it is to do this outside of their software.
This is MY OWN opinion - heck no. It’s really targeted at the “craft” owner who isn’t interested in learning the basic skills to use a real design app, and has no ability to create their own designs. And, even if you’re not capable of using a design app, you can buy designs elsewhere.
I have always used Inkscape, which is intuitive to me. Since before Glowforge existed, but I took the time to brush up and expand my knowledge when I got my first machine.
I have no use for “Premium”, or the “catalog” - I’ve still got all the catalog credits from my initial purchase I’ve never used. I’ve never purchased a design from anyone. I bought my Glowforge to enable me to create, which means my own ideas and effort, not pay someone else to do it for me. In that case, why would I bother owning it to begin with?
You do not need the premium subscription to get the full benefit of owning a laser. Glowforge owners happily used their machines for many years before there was a premium subscription product. I believe the subscription product was developed as a result of Glowforge owners’ expressing their desire for some of its features and it continues because some Glowforge owners are willing to pay for it because it is worth it to them personally.
There are many alternatives to the premium subscription.
I might be biased, but I think the software is fantastic without paying a penny extra. I used it for years that way, and it’s only gotten better since.
You can pay more for premium and get even more features, but by no means do you have to to have an awesome software experience.
Most companies make the free product worse to force you to buy the paid product. That’s not the case at all! That said, 2/3 of customers do subscribe, mostly for the AI assistants and catalog (although everyone has their favorite feature). As others point out, there’s lots of alternatives in the market, so I like to think that means the subscription is pretty good, too.
I’d say: sign up for the free trial, give it a spin, and if you don’t think it’s worth it, ditch it.
I think everyone is neglecting one major caveat: the Aura is limited to 100kb file size without premium.
So yes, premium is optional for performance models, but craft series machines can’t work with complex files or especially any file containing photos with that restriction — even a very small photo easily surpasses 100kb. This may or may not be an issue for a user based on your use case, but in my eyes it all but necessitates premium.
At the very least if a craft series user wants to go without premium I’d recommend reading this help page about file size optimization:
I learned Inkscape when I purchased my Glowforge to be able to design. I’m still a novice so I LOVE the premium additions. I use the catalog for many things editing them to be personalized. I have also purchased etsy and other vendor svgs and used without issue. So, it’s not necessary at all, just nice to have the additional features-and they keep adding.
621 of the 1645 SVG files I have are over 100kB - but I know for a fact, many are that large because I started a design with a specific bitmap image used as a template, and I keep it in the file in case I ever need to refer back to it, even if it’s dragged off the workspace out of the way. Often, I have multiple variations of a design in one file as well, i.e. a coin I made with different engrave images - I keep them all lumped together.
I can see why they would do it. Limit network bandwidth and storage when supporting their bottom-end machines.
Also I think there are probably diminishing returns for the craft machines and larger files.
In general the job time gets out of hand as your complexity ramps up on the aura/spark. Maybe the theory is that files over 100kb start to push the practical limits of the machine; people aren’t likely to sit and watch six hour jobs.
Been using this thing for… what… 7 or 8 years now? There are 0 Premium features I can imagine I’d ever need. But that’s me. I can’t speak to your design skill level or desire to increase those skills to a place that gets you what you need.
You do have one feature that you probably take for granted: indefinite design storage. You’re grandfathered in, but new users have to be premium to get that.
I don’t often go back to old designs but it’s useful now and then. I wouldn’t want to lose that.
Never. I had all my designs removed once, many years ago. If I hadn’t had them locally, I’d have lost them.
In any case, my designs never used “features” in the app anyway. It’s simply a print layout tool in my world.. Plus, there’s no way to organize and search them like you can with a simple local file system.
Yup. Like anything its utility depends on your use case and workflow.
People who use their machines for business (which often means repeat jobs) seem to be the most concerned about being able to reload old jobs. I’m a hobbyist, and like I said, I rarely use it… but the handful of times I do it’s very useful.
My biggest use case: material testing. I can simply reload the test job and get right to work figuring out proper settings for any material. Initially uploading and configuring that job requires settings for many steps; indefinite storage lets me skip all that configuration and get to work.
My test method and free template for others to use:
I have templates like that. They rarely preserve settings, so those too are of no use to me. I can’t explain why, and the effort involved in figuring it out is more than just accepting they are not saved, and entering them in every time.
Yeah the saved settings thing is weird. I haven’t had failed settings in some time. I have a bookmark to my test and it loads fine every time lately. Maybe Glowforge fixed a bug behind the scenes?
It’s probably a year or more since I tried, but I simply accepted it would likely fail, and streamlined my own process to where I couldn’t even be bothered now.
What I did was put text (which won’t print) alongside each element that does, so I could easily assign settings. Just a habit now, that takes no time..
Good point. To date, there’s only been 1 design that I’ve gone back to that I didn’t save locally because it was, what I thought was a throw-away design. It was just to test a material I’d gotten. Turns out I love the design. LOL I still have the original engrave hanging, but I recently got a material that it’d be better with, so I looked up the old design. Thing is, I quickly realized I wanted to recreate it from scratch again anyway. Put actual attention to detail this time rathter than “That looks good enough.” LOL
But, still, a valid point. Personally, aside from that one design, I have everything I’ve ever made saved as my original Illustrator files.
