Anker says its livestreaming 3D printer is 5x faster than competition

As cool as 3D printing may be, it’s still plagued with some quality control issues that can lead to wasted time and materials. Anker, under its new brand, AnkerMake, is trying to improve on those pitfalls with the M5 3D printer, designed to make 3D printing a lot faster.

The first product from AnkerMake, the M5 that’s currently being crowdfunded on Kickstarter, is aimed at addressing some of the common issues with 3D printers, like filament spaghetti or whatever this is. To combat these sometimes beautifully disastrous prints, the M5 has automatic monitoring that will alert you when something goes wrong. Anker says the M5 has five times the print speeds of its competition, so you might not have to run your printer overnight anymore.

Accelerated printing — On top of the fast printing speeds, Anker says you can assemble the M5 printer in about 15 minutes. Once it’s set up, the printer’s default printing speed is 250mm/sec, but you can accelerate the speed up to 2,500mm/s². This high-speed mode reduces average print times up to 70 percent compared to other 3D printers and is better suited for prototyping something where the imperfections won’t matter.

If you 3D print enough, you’ll eventually run into an absolute abomination on your print bed, but Anker is hoping to avoid this issue completely with a built-in nanny cam. The M5’s AI print monitoring cam can detect issues like layer splitting, spaghetti mess ,or nozzle plugging and alert you before your project devolves into an unfortunate Lovecraftian horror.

The 3D printer can connect to the AnkerMake app so you can tune into a live feed of the print job and get a time lapse that’s automatically generated afterward the printing is complete. The M5 can also be connected through Wi-Fi, USB cable, or a flash drive and is compatible with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.

Kickstarting things — Anker chose to go through Kickstarter for its first 3D printer, which has a special limited early bird pricing of $429. The normal early bird price will be $499. The price is much lower than other popular options, like the Prusa i3 MK3S+, which costs $999 for a fully assembled kit and has a print speed of 200mm/s.

Anker will definitely have some ground to make up to go against some more established 3D printer companies like Prusa and Artillery, but the more recognizable Anker name could be a way to attract people unfamiliar with 3D printing into the space.