Anker Quit Desktop 3D Printing and Has No Plans to Return

Anker built a reputation on tech accessories that work and cost less than the premium alternatives. For a brief moment, the company tried to bring that same formula to desktop 3D printers. It did not last.

The printers carried the AnkerMake name, with the M5 as the flagship. Reviewers praised its beginner-friendly setup and solid print quality. At $699, it was priced to compete directly with the Bambu Lab P1P. Anker even built a community around it. But the hardware vanished from the market almost as quickly as it arrived.

Why it failed

The main culprit was supply chain bottlenecks. Anker could not secure critical components in the volumes it needed. The company does not manufacture its own printer parts; it relies on the same fragmented supplier base as everyone else in Shenzhen. When shortages hit, Anker had no fallback. The M5 went out of stock and never came back.

There was a brief hope that the brand would survive under a new name, eufyMake, tied to Anker's smart-home division. A fabric printer preview at IFA 2026 suggested Anker was pivoting to a different category entirely. But that hardware never reached stores either. Anker removed all references to 3D printers from its website and described the move as an indefinite hiatus. More than a year later, that reads like a polite way of saying the division is dead.

What replaced it

The gap Anker left behind is now filled by more focused competitors. Bambu Lab's A1 costs less than the original AnkerMake M5 and offers a smoother out-of-box experience. Creality, Elegoo, and Anycubic have all tightened their budget and mid-range lineups. The market Anker tried to enter became more crowded, not less, even as Anker withdrew.

The eufyMake fabric printer preview at IFA 2026 hinted at something different, but direct-to-garment printing is a niche that requires its own supply chains, materials, and software. Anker's strength has always been iterating on proven categories, not inventing new ones. A fabric printer is a harder business than a standard FDM machine, and Anker has shown no urgency to ship one.

The takeaway

Anker's exit is a reminder that brand trust does not automatically carry over to a new product category. The company can sell millions of power banks and still fail at 3D printers if it cannot secure components, price competitively, and build the right ecosystem. For buyers, the lesson is simple: the Anker name is not a guarantee of long-term support in any category. If the company can walk away from 3D printing once, it can do it again.