Breaking News | xTool Launches New Product Combining Color Printing and Laser Cutting

Text | Zhang Ziyi

Editor | Yuan Silai

36Kr learned that xTool, a personal creative tool brand, officially launched its new consumer-grade laser creation tool today - the xTool M2 Color Smart Laser Engraver.

In the current consumer-grade laser engraving market, a core pain point faced by users is the disconnection between "mechanical processing and color performance": Traditional laser engravers are good at physical cutting and burning marks, but if users want to create colored works, they often have to go through cumbersome manual painting, transfer printing, or switching and aligning multiple devices. The process is both complex and difficult to ensure accuracy.

The xTool M2 attempts to integrate three functions of inkjet printing, laser engraving, and laser cutting into a single device through in-depth integration at the hardware level, allowing users to complete the closed-loop from design to finished product in the same desktop process.

In terms of specific hardware definition, the xTool M2 adopts a modular design concept. To meet the creative needs of different levels, the laser module part offers semiconductor blue laser heads with powers of 10W, 20W, and up to 40W, which can perform high-precision engraving and cutting on hundreds of non-metallic materials such as wood, cloth, and leather.

For the special needs of metal marking, this model is also compatible with a 3W infrared laser module to achieve a more delicate metal engraving effect. The most crucial addition is its CMYK four-color inkjet printing module, which enables the device to perform full-color direct printing on water-absorbent materials such as wood, paper, and felt. Through path alignment at the software level, the coordinate systems of color printing and laser cutting are highly unified, greatly reducing the alignment errors caused by material transfer in the past.

The process of laser engraving tools evolving from "geek toys" to "mass creative tools" is often hindered by cumbersome parameter debugging. To this end, the xTool M2 introduces a series of industrial-grade automation technologies to lower the operation threshold. The device is the first to apply a Dual Cameras real-time preview system in the consumer market. Through these two cameras, users can observe the placement of materials in the working area in real-time on the control panel canvas, achieving "what you see is what you get" visual positioning.

The supporting ACS™ Automatic Creation System further simplifies the focusing and positioning process. The system can automatically match the corresponding processing parameters according to the materials placed by users. For novice users with zero experience, combined with the vast number of templates in the official Atomm community, the creative process is simplified to simple steps of placing materials, dragging images, and one-click processing, which marks the transformation of laser creation tools into inclusive productivity tools.

The balance between safety and applicable scenarios is also a key consideration for this product. The xTool M2 adopts a fully enclosed structure specially designed for home and educational environments, meets the Class 1 safety level, and is equipped with a real-time safety monitoring system. Once it detects the risk of opening the cover or a fire, it will immediately trigger a shutdown. This design logic enables it to not only handle the heavy tasks in personal studios but also safely enter family parent-child or maker education spaces.

In terms of market positioning, the target audience of the xTool M2 is clearly aimed at the emerging "one-person company" model and side hustle economy globally. This includes but is not limited to entrepreneurs on e-commerce platforms and offline stores that provide customized services such as cultural and creative shops.

Currently, xTool has occupied a large market share in the consumer-grade laser engraving market, and the launch of the M2 marks the evolution of this category from a single "processing tool" to a "comprehensive desktop factory". By bringing the expensive industrial-grade color direct printing technology and high-precision laser control technology down to the consumer price range of around 3,000 yuan, xTool hopes to further expand the global maker market through technology dissemination and promote the continuous upgrading of the mass creative experience.