Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer review

Our Verdict

The Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer offers a lot of features and performance for the toll, making it a bang-up pick for dwelling house users curious about 3D printing.

For

High-quality prints
Good print speed
Simple, usable interface

Against

Smaller impress area than like models
Software is not very flexible

Tom'due south Guide Verdict

The Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer offers a lot of features and performance for the price, making it a bang-up pick for home users curious about 3D press.

Pros

+
Loftier-quality prints
+
Good print speed
+
Simple, usable interface

Cons

-
Smaller print surface area than like models
-
Software is not very flexible

Polaroid isn't a name that springs to mind for 3D printing — at least not for U.S. shoppers — but the Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer might change that. Polaroid has built a uncomplicated device that produces excellent quality prints using a variety of materials, as nosotros discovered during testing our Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer review.

The Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer costs $599. Like the Polaroid 3D Play Pen we tested for our 3D pen face-off, Polaroid's 3D printer is an exclusive at craft retailer Joann, currently offering the printer at an attractive discount as of this writing.

Without that discount, you'll discover less expensive choices for novice users amid our list of the best 3D printers. Merely the Polaroid proper name and the quality output from the PlaySmart make this device worth a look if you want a 3D printer for the habitation.

Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer specs

3D Printer Blazon: FFF
Layer Resolution: 50 - 300 microns
Materials: PLA, P-Woods, PETG
Controls: three.5-inch LCD color touchscreen
Build Volume: 4.7 x 4.seven 10 4.vii inches
Printer Size: 12.vi ten eleven.eight x.6 inches
Printer Weight: 11 pounds

Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer review: Design

Polaroid's better known for its instant cameras, and the PlaySmart takes some design cues from that iconic production, using white and black plastic and the Polaroid logo. The printer might come beyond as dated to some, but it didn't expect out of place side by side to one of my vintage 1970s Polaroid cameras.

The print expanse of the PlaySmart is rather modest, at just four.7 by 4.vii by 4.7 inches, for a total of 103 cubic inches. That's a lot less than comparable printers like the Monoprice Voxel (329 cubic inches in total), but it's the same every bit the Da Vinci Nano. Printing area is less of an consequence than you might beginning suspect, though: it isn't difficult to cut objects into parts and print ane at a fourth dimension if need be.

Above the PlaySmart's impress area is a small photographic camera, used to monitor prints in progress and to produce timelapse videos. The filament is stored on a divide holder that also monitors how much filament you lot have left. It's a nice touch, but 1 that feels somewhat redundant when you tin can conspicuously see how much filament is left on the roll. The PlaySmart works with filament from either Polaroid or tertiary-party manufacturers.

Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer review: Controls

Next to the print area, the Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer features an LCD controller, which is a modest but piece of cake-to-read touch on screen. It is also responsive, and picking out on-screen options is easy to do.

Still, you'll find information technology easier to control the PlaySmart with the Polaroid PLAYSmart app, available for iOS and Android. This free app allows you to beginning prints from the library of manufacturer-supplied models, monitor a print in progress through the camera or run maintenance tasks. If you're printing your own model though, you'll demand to use the command panel and the Polaroid SmartPrep software for Windows or Mac.

This simple 3D modeling plan can load existing models in the .STL and .OBJ formats. You can resize, motility, combine or otherwise manipulate your models, saving them and preparing them for press. The print file can't be sent straight to the PlaySmart printer, though: you lot have to save the print files to a USB drive, then connect this to the printer yourself and select information technology for press. That seems like an odd requirement as the PlaySmart supports Wi-Fi.

Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer review: Print speed

The PlaySmart is a pretty fast printer: it cranked out a 4-inch high impress of our Thinker model in 3 hours and 56 minutes in Draft mode. Changing the settings to Fine mode lengthened the print time to 10 hours and 13 minutes. That means the PlaySmart can chop-chop produce a rough print when required or produce a effectively, smoother print overnight.

The PlaySmart is a little faster than about printers we have tested, producing a draft impress quicker than the Monoprice Voxel, currently our favorite 3D printer for beginners.

Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer review: Impress materials

The PlaySmart can print using three different materials: PLA, P-Wood and PETG. PLA, or polylactic acid is the standard printing cloth that well-nigh 3D printers apply. PETG, or Polyethylene terephthalate, is a plastic that is commonly used in plastic bottles and the similar. It is lighter and stronger than PLA, but is also more than expensive. P-Woods is a form of PLA that is mixed with sawdust to produce a wood-like experience.

These materials aren't expensive: a 1KG reel of PLA costs $38, while a similar amount of PETG costs $48 and P-Wood is $55 for half a kilogram. You aren't limited to these filaments, though: the PlaySmart can as well use 3rd-political party filament, making this device more flexible than 3D printers restricting y'all to their manufacturers' filaments.

Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer: Impress Quality

As fast as the Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer created prints, nosotros also were impressed by the print quality of those models. The PlaySmart 3D printer yielded prints with clean, shine details and very few issues.

We test print quality by printing three models: a scan of Rodin'southward Thinker sculpture, a geometric sculpture and a set up of gears. Our beginning exam model came out very well: the Thinker sculpture had excellent detail and smooth, organic-looking surfaces. The printer did a swell chore of reproducing the curves of the sculptures back and muscles. The layers of the print were rather obvious in all of the print modes, though: the impress lacked the polished smoothness of SLA printers and some more expensive FDM printers.

Our 2d test model uses a geometric sculpture that really showcases the ability of a 3D printer to produce clean, sharp edges. The PlaySmart struggled a fiddling here, with a print that had a lot of thin filaments of PLA between the edges of the print. Those filaments were produced by the material stretching as the impress head moved between the different parts of the impress. These are not difficult to trim off, though, and once removed the PlaySmart's geometric sculpture print had sharp, smooth edges and well-defined points.

Finally, nosotros printed a set of gears that are designed to snap together to form a set of hand-cranked planetary gears. The PlaySmart handled these without likewise many issues, producing a set of gears that fit together with just minimal cleaning. Nosotros did accept to trim off a lot of the brim that held the print onto the print bed, though.

Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer review: Verdict

The Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer offers a lot for $599: it tin produce loftier-quality prints and churn out quick draft prints very rapidly. Information technology also supports a variety of materials and doesn't lock you into one supplier for your filament.

Merely when comparing this device to other 3D printers aimed at novices for our Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer preview, Polaroid's offering is relatively expensive. The Monoprice Voxel, for example, can produce prints that are nearly as good while costing $200 less.

Fifty-fifty at its regular toll, though, y'all're getting a loftier-quality device for your money with the Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer. And if that cost drops below $599, then it becomes a very expert deal indeed. Fifty-fifty when non on sale, though, the Polaroid PlaySmart 3D printer is a very expert pick for dwelling house users who desire to get started with 3D printing and want the very best prints, regardless of how much they take to pay upfront.

Richard Baguley has been working as a engineering science writer and journalist since 1993. Too as contributing to Tom'south Guide, he writes for Cnet, T3, Wired and many other publications.