I know there has been talks of usage hours on the Glowforge within the Social Media community, but since Glowforge uses a cloud, is there a way to track the hours of usage? My machine only lasted approximately 18 months and I only use it as a hobby. I know I cannot have more than 100 hours on my machine if even that. I know I am out of warranty but I am a little disappointed I am only offered a $1200 refurbished machine and I only got 18 months out of my original machine. I am thinking of going with another brand with live tech support. What is the average life of a glowforge?
The only way to track hours of usage is to keep a record yourself. Many people have had their Glowforges since the original crowdfunding campaign shipped 4-5 years ago, and they’re still working fine.
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There is a wide variety of how the Glowforge is used and a similar variety of problems from minor to major about what goes wrong, including many that both minor and major can show similar symptoms. Since sending the machine to be repaired can take an inordinate amount of time they offer one already repaired and probably better than new due to more testing at what they estimate the cost of repair and transport would be. $1200 for the refurbished machine is a bit higher than the average but you have not mentioned the issue. In any case, $1200 for a working machine is a far better value than nothing for a dead machine, and if you then wanted to sell that you could probably make a profit.
Looking for a cheaper machine you would get less from it while a more expensive machine could have the same issues at as much or more than ten times the cost.
If all you wanted to do was engrave bottles then a Glowforge is not your machine. If you have thousands of orders to get out then Glowforge is not your machine either. There are however folks in this group that started with a Glowforge and went Hollywood on us with thousands of orders and moved up to more expensive machines capable of the volume.
You pick what you need 
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