I skipped Bambu's cloud with 3 open-source tools, and I can still check prints from anywhere

Published Oct 19, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT Patrick Campanale has been in the tech space for well over a decade, specializing in PC/gaming news and reviews, as well as maker-focused products to build small businesses. With a start in technology back in 2010 surrounding the Palm/webOS ecosystem, Patrick spent his formative years developing mobile applications as well as blogging for various publications, eventually leading to starting his own website in 2014. After running a technology blog for a few years, he stepped out of that role and into the world of high-end custom PC manufacturing and building, with a focus on YouTube video production and overclocking. Then, in 2017, Patrick joined the 9to5Toys team as an editor/writer/reviewer with over 14,000 articles being published during his time there, ranging from deals and roundups to in-depth reviews on the latest technology, video games, 3D printers, and more. In his free time, Patrick loves to create projects from wood using various robots and methods, including leveraging the technologies of CNCs and lasers. If Patrick isn't working on a computer or playing video games, he's likely in his 2-car garage workshop creating something unique. In addition to all this, Patrick is also the media director at his local church where he feels God has called him to serve, and he loves every minute of it. Bambu Lab might be one of the best 3D printer brands out there in my opinion, but that doesn't mean I agree with every decision it makes. That's why I've deployed these three open-source utilities to help me take back control of my printer—and I think you should do the same. Orca Slicer lets me slice and print files without sending them to the cloud Bambu Studio works, but is limited and ties everything to the cloud Bambu Studio is the default app for Bambu Lab 3D printers for most people. It's made by Bambu Lab and will always be kept up to date for the latest printers without issues. Oh, and it's the main app that can (officially) send prints to your Bambu Lab printers wirelessly without disabling all sorts of features. Bambu does have a Bambu Connect app for third-party apps to hand off to, but it still sends the files through Bambu's cloud, which is why most open-source projects don't have it integrated. This didn't use to be the case. Not long ago, you could use any app you wanted to send prints wirelessly to your Bambu Lab 3D printers. But Bambu locked it down and locked out most other apps in favor of pushing everyone to use its own app. This might not sound like a big deal, but, depending on what you print, it might be. Even though I don't print taboo items on my 3D printers, I still don't want everything I make being sent to a cloud server with no way around it if I want remote access to my printer. Bambu Studio does work in LAN-only mode, but it disables some of the remote access features with no real way to get them back. Thankfully, I can put my printers into LAN-only mode and then into developer mode. While this disconnects them from all of Bambu's cloud-based features (which I honestly don't miss all that much), it allows me to use my own slicer and other apps, like Orca Slicer. Orca is simply better than Bambu Studio in almost every way. It has more options for infill, it gets new features sooner than Bambu Studio, and it offers a much more complete calibration setup than Bambu Studio. Most importantly, my prints stay local and don't go to the cloud for processing and verification before hitting my printer. Farm control has never been easier Bambu Lab has its own farm management software, but it's not something that I've seen many farms actually use. For some reason, it's fairly limited and just not something most people actually rely on. However, Bambuddy is a completely different story. Built by the community for the needs of actual farms, Bambuddy is one of those things that you might not realize you need up front. It's a tool that I don't use all that often, but I'm glad it's there for when I need it. If you've never used it, Bambuddy gives a single pane of glass (SPOG) for your entire 3D printer farm (that runs on Bambu printers) so you can see what's printing, what's done, and what's paused at any given moment. Bambuddy can even be expanded to support non-Bambu printers yourself, and it's something I've done for my setup since I have Flashforge and Elegoo printers as well. However, it works best with Bambu printers. I have a good friend of mine who runs a 3D print farm with over 100 printers for his small business, and he was managing everything by hand before I told him about Bambuddy. He had individual flash drives for each printer and built an app to replicate the files to all the flash drives at once through a USB hub. When I showed him Bambuddy, everything changed. He customized it for his needs (since it's open source) and now he can manage his entire fleet of printers from one computer. Bambuddy now handles queueing up prints to run in his farm. It also serves up the customizations he built which flash a printer if it pauses or fails, turns the lights off when a print is running, and turns the lights on when a print is completed. With Bambuddy, he's able to manage his farm way more efficiently than any other method he has tried before. And my setup is the same, but just on a much smaller scale. Home Assistant gives me the mobile notifications I lose out on by leaving first-party apps Going into LAN-only and developer modes stops Bambu Handy from working, and Home Assistant fills in that gap One downside to turning on LAN-only mode to use Orca Slicer and Bambuddy is that it disconnects me from the Bambu Handy app on my phone. This means that I no longer get status updates of prints when they're done or fail, and I can't see the camera remotely, either. With Home Assistant, that's not a problem though. There are plugins for HACS that let me connect my Bambu Lab 3D printers to Home Assistant, and it's fantastic. The other thing is, Bambuddy can also integrate with Home Assistant to manage notifications. So, the way I have everything set up is Bambuddy runs on my home network to give me that single pane of glass for all my printers. I have my printers connected to Home Assistant, and Bambuddy manages what notifications Home Assistant gets. Then, I have Home Assistant forwarding through a reverse proxy in my homelab so I can access it when I'm not at home, letting me get notifications and monitor prints no matter where I am. This is the dream setup for me. I have (basically) all the functionality I could need without having to worry about using Bambu's cloud. And, if I want to start a 3D print when I'm not at home, I can do that through Bambuddy without a problem since I also have that opened up on my system through a reverse proxy. I dream of one day not having to go through all these hoops just to use my printers how I want, but that's just sadly not the case right now. I'm so thankful for the open-source community that helps me take back control over my print farm, as it makes everything I do in it so much easier.