Subscription fee?

Since the Glowforge uses a cloud-based service to do the heavy lifting, will there be any sort of subscription fee like what Adobe has done with Creative Cloud?

Apologies if this question has been answered elsewhere.

Really glad you asked! We don’t have any subscription service planned. Even if that changes, though, the launch product won’t require any subscription, ever.

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That’s great! Thanks for the reply.

Hi, firstly let me say I’m stoked to be on the pre-order for a pro model. Cant wait to get it. On a similar follow up question as I want to understand my investment in a unit. (and I’ve fallen foul of this before) assuming the worst case and the company changes hands etc and at some point there needs to be a subscription OR lets just say I want to use the machine offline. Is there some base level of functionality I get out of the printer and a computer not connected to the internet, or does it become a paperweight at that point? I.e. can I continue to cut /etch, but do I basically lose the camera surface modelling functionality and material detection.
Thanks and again looking forward to getting my unit
Jerome

Glowforge announced that they are going to open source the firmware for the device, so it will be capable of operating without the online service. The catch is the middle parts of the process of getting your design from a design (CAD, Illustrator, etc) program into commands that the device understands and sending them to it.

There hasn’t been any word about what language or interface the firmware speaks, so we can’t know if any of the existing CAM solutions will work for it. It’s pretty unlikely, given the special features of the Glowforge around things like the cameras and the fact that it’s wifi connected, but it’s possible that for basic cutting/engraving that speaks something that looks like normal-ish gcode.

I would be very surprised if there’s not some open source activity soon after the launch directed at solving for the case where you want to run it completely standalone, but it’s hard to know when exactly or how long it’ll take.

Thanks Mark, spot on. The motherboard has a full Linux environment so you’ll have a lot of options with existing open source projects. There’s currently no offline functionality out of the box, though. (And unfortunately we have to void the warranty if you flash the firmware - it’s just too easy to wreck the thing when you’re experimenting).

Regarding subscription, you’ll need an account but not a paid subscription of any sort.

Are you saying that if we purchased the glow forge on pre-order, we won’t be charged subscription fees, even though it is stated in the contract to receive it? What do you mean by “launch product”.

In the contract to receive the “launch product”:

“Subscription Service. In the future, the Service may include additional, premium features that include automatically recurring payments for periodic charges (“Subscription Service”), for example, monthly delivery of materials. If you decide to activate a Subscription Service, you authorize Glowforge to periodically charge, on a going-forward basis and until cancellation of either the recurring payments or your account, all accrued sums on or before the payment due date for the accrued sums. The “Subscription Billing Date” is the date when you purchase your first subscription to the Service. Your account will be charged automatically on the Subscription Billing Date all applicable fees for the next subscription period. The subscription will continue unless and until you cancel your subscription or we terminate it. You must cancel your subscription before it renews in order to avoid billing of the next periodic subscription fee to your account. We will bill the periodic subscription fee to the payment method you provide to us during registration (or to a different payment method if you change your payment information). Glowforge may increase the subscription fee for any subsequent subscription period if Glowforge gives you advance notice of the increase before it applies. Glowforge may decrease the subscription fee for any subsequent subscription period without notice. You may cancel a Subscription Service by contacting us at: support@glowforge.com.”

FYI, this thread died in Sept '15. Might get a more direct answer if you create a new thread in #problems-and-support where it will generate a support ticket.

If you are a current customer, you won’t be required to pay a subscription fee for the features we advertised when you purchased it.

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