Produced by Huxiu Business Consumer Group.
By Zhou Yueming.
Editor: Miao Zhengqing.
Cover image: Changlang.
This article was produced in partnership with INNO 100 Global Innovation Flagship Store. Hardware 100, an AI hardware innovation column from Huxiu's tech team, is running this as its 22nd installment.
As consumer-grade 3D printers move beyond the enthusiast niche and into the studies and garages of middle-class households, the focus of desktop manufacturing is shifting.
Single-color molding and monochrome engraving can already turn ideas into objects. The next step is producing items with color, texture, and commercial viability.
Against this backdrop, desktop UV printers that combine color curing and multi-material printing have become the new focus.
For example, in 2025, the E1 launched by Anker Innovations' eufyMake became the most-funded project in Kickstarter's history. Within two years, more than five brands have entered the category.
Among them is Shenzhen-based Longer, which has been rooted in the 3D printing industry for ten years. Founded in 2016, its founder, Lao Changshi, previously conducted doctoral research in lasers, materials, and algorithms at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
In November 2025, Longer launched its own UV printer, the Longer ePrint, on Kickstarter. It sold $1 million (over 7 million yuan) in 45 minutes; within 60 days, it raised $4.294 million (about 28.9 million yuan) from 1,621 backers.
The machine features an industry-first dual print head, 12 ink paths, and an open ink system, covering multiple printing processes. In early August 2026, the Longer ePrint made its debut in China, with exclusive pre-sales through the INNO100 flagship store and JD.com at a launch price of 14,999 yuan.
As early as three years ago, Longer identified the potential for desktop UV printers among its users.
Small merchants near U.S. national parks asked Longer if it had tools to print custom designs directly on cultural products. An American mother planning her daughter's wedding also asked Longer about a tool that could print colorful patterns for return gifts on paper boxes.
"We realized then that monochrome or black-and-white expression was no longer enough; people need richer colors and more freedom to customize," Allen Leung, co-founder and deputy general manager of Longer, told Huxiu.
The dividends from monochrome 3D printing and black-and-white laser engraving are shrinking. The next stop for desktop manufacturing is full-color and multi-process integration. A heated battle in desktop manufacturing has begun.
Competing for Small Business Users
Like many desktop devices built for creative and custom-production work, Changlang ePrint is aimed not at home users but at small businesses that make money from custom orders.
The ranks of small businesses taking orders from home studios have swelled with the rapid growth of personalized-gift demand. In mature overseas consumer markets—where garage-startup culture runs deep and buyers pay up for personalized products—that group already numbers in the millions.
Etsy, one of the largest overseas marketplaces for creative goods, had 5.6 million active sellers as of end-2025, with roughly 30% of platform sales coming from customized or made-to-order items.
These small businesses—handling print-on-demand, gifts, cultural merchandise, souvenirs and small-batch transfers—are the key battleground for desktop printing companies because their orders are scattered, designs change fast and deadlines are tight, so they need their own production equipment.
In overseas markets such as the US, the last mile of small-batch customization often lacks the dense, responsive manufacturing supply chain that China has. Most factories are built around bulk orders and stable designs. When an order is just a few dozen units, the design changes repeatedly and delivery must arrive before a wedding, festival or event, the minimum order quantities, back-and-forth time and shipping costs quickly escalate.
"Buying a machine lets you take small orders and keep the margin," Allen Leung told Huxiu. With custom miniature decorative oil paintings, for example, a small merchant can finish more than 20 pieces in a day and monetize quickly.
The company that helps these small businesses retain more profit in-house will become the next production machine that stays switched on.
But Changlang sees several persistent flaws in existing UV printers.
First, a single printhead is inefficient and limits the range of processes.
For embossed effects, the process requires a white ink base, then color ink, and finally a gloss coating. This means the product's base is entirely white, driving up white ink usage. With only one printhead, production speed suffers.
Second, maintenance costs for cleaning and ink changes are high.
Switching between processes requires thorough cleaning of the ink lines; any mistake can cause ink cross-contamination or chemical reactions. That's a significant barrier for small businesses with limited operational expertise.
Third, printheads are prone to clogging and have a short lifespan.
In low temperatures, ink can solidify and clog the heads; prolonged idle time also damages the lines. And if an industrial-grade printhead fails, replacement can cost thousands of yuan.
Fourth, consumables are locked into a closed system.
Many companies in the industry use a 'low-cost machine plus expensive OEM ink cartridges' model, which steadily raises operating costs for merchants over time.
To address these pain points, Changlang ePrint's solution is a dual-printhead, 12-ink-channel architecture.
To solve the low efficiency and single-process limitations of a single printhead, ePrint dedicates one printhead to white ink, speeding up embossed effects. The two printheads can also handle different processes separately—one side for UV (direct printing on hard surfaces), the other for DTF (printing on film then heat-pressing onto fabrics like garments) or DTG (direct printing onto garment fabric)—eliminating tedious ink changes and cleaning, and enabling four combinations.
The 12 ink channels also reduce process switching for complex orders. Color ink, white ink, and varnish can be used together in a single job, eliminating the need to frequently change inks or equipment for different effects.
In Changlang's view, this is not simply stacking hardware.
"The real difficulty isn't adding another printhead, but keeping two jetting paths precisely aligned on the same object: structural control, color registration, positioning, and preventing ink cross-contamination. If any of these fails, speed turns into rework," Allen Leung told Huxiu.
He revealed that ePrint has been in development since 2024, with R&D spanning more than ten months. One of the team's key focuses was managing compatibility and coordination among different inks.
As for the issue of closed consumable lock-in, Changlang opted for an open ink system.
A common model in desktop hardware is selling machines at low prices and making ongoing profits from proprietary consumables. A closed system lets manufacturers tightly control ink, printheads, and color consistency; the trade-off is fewer consumable choices for users and harder-to-lower long-term costs.
"Open ink's concept is to reduce users' reliance on a single OEM consumables system and leave some choice to makers and small businesses. Changlang hopes to be rewarded through hardware stability and user experience," Allen Leung told Huxiu.
However, an open system does not mean users can use any ink casually.
Inks with different formulations cannot be directly mixed; the lines must be flushed before switching inks, otherwise there may be ink cross-contamination or chemical reactions. If open ink is to become a selling point, Changlang must give users clear rules on compatibility lists, cleaning procedures, fault liability, and warranty boundaries; otherwise, the savings on consumables may turn into maintenance costs for novices.
In addition, to address the issues of UV printheads being prone to clogging and having short lifespans,
ePrint's approach is to plan maintenance mechanisms such as moisture retention and "flash spraying" to address issues like low-temperature nozzle clogging and long idle periods, and to adopt replaceable, thousand-yuan-level components to keep subsequent maintenance costs within an acceptable range for small merchants.
Finding Opportunities in a Crowded Field
Competition in this track is already more crowded than expected.
Companies from diverse backgrounds are pouring into this space: from 3D printing, laser, and consumer-grade manufacturing brands, to companies like Anker and xTool that already have overseas channels and a base of maker users; teams with experience at major firms like DJI have also begun to position themselves.
These companies are not all competing on the same product line, but they are all vying for the same entry point: who can first deliver color, small-batch, low-barrier manufacturing capabilities to ordinary creators and small merchants.
"We are indeed surrounded by wolves — the technology lead from dual printheads may last only a few months," Allen Leung told Huxiu.
He estimates the window could last until October, when rivals will likely roll out dual-printhead models one after another, marking a critical phase in the race to capture the peak 2026 selling season.
The intensity of competition is also becoming evident in pricing.
To gain an edge, Changlang ePrint set its early-bird launch price at 14,999 yuan.
In overseas markets, comparable desktop UV devices now range from roughly 16,000 to 24,000 yuan. Anker's eufyMake E1 base version (single printhead) is priced at about $2,409 (around 16,200 yuan);
xTool's O1 Omni is listed at $2,499 (about 16,800 yuan) for the single-UV version, $3,299 (about 22,200 yuan) for the dual-UV printhead version, and $3,499 (about 23,500 yuan) for the UV + DT Fabric version.
On consumables, Changlang's open-ink strategy targets small merchants' sensitivity to long-term ink costs.
eufyMake uses proprietary cartridges, with a public retail price of about $29.99 per 100 ml (around 202 yuan). xTool sells 125 ml bottled ink at a launch price of $13.99 (about 94 yuan).
The pricing and market positioning put Changlang's supply chain and cost-control capabilities to the test.
But hardware price isn't everything. To seize the window of opportunity, Changlang has set itself several core tasks.
“The first is ensuring delivery,” Allen Leung told Huxiu.
The biggest risk for new hardware isn't missing pre-orders; it's orders arriving faster than supply chain and quality control can handle. Dual printheads, multiple ink circuits, varied consumables and processes magnify any small deviation in mass production. A single prototype may produce beautiful results, but that doesn't guarantee dozens or hundreds of machines will run reliably. Missing the peak season means lost sales; delivery instability hurts early adopters' trust.
Second, it needs to step up marketing.
Changlang will build an ecosystem through influencer partnerships, shared parameters and user communities.
Top brands have far more scale in overseas channels, content placement, distribution networks and user awareness. Changlang's gap isn't just ad spend. It needs to equip early influencers, makers and small merchants with reusable settings, assets and case studies, so they can carry the product into wider communities.
The longer-term test lies in intelligence and ease of use.
Open ink systems can attract cost-sensitive users, multi-process capabilities expand order types, and dual printheads offer a temporary first-mover advantage.
These features can be copied by later entrants. What is truly hard to replicate is helping users quickly find workable solutions to material, ink, and design problems—and keeping them coming back for the next order.
That is where AI plays a more practical role in such hardware.
For small businesses, the most valuable AI isn't necessarily generating another image. It's reducing the need to adjust parameters, wasting less material, and avoiding machine stoppages due to anomalies.
Only when intelligence is embedded across pattern processing, calibration, material recognition, and maintenance alerts can a professional device approach plug-and-play usability.
"One machine, creativity at your fingertips" is the vision Changlang wants to deliver. But in desktop manufacturing, creativity is just the start of an order. Users still contend with materials, ink, lead times, scrap rates, and after-sales support.
Changlang is betting that dual printheads, open ink systems, and multi-process capabilities give makers and small merchants more control over their production workflow.
The real hurdle is the same one all desktop manufacturing devices face: whoever delivers a mature, reliable product to users first will win the market's mindshare.