Smart craft machine maker xTool has opened global orders for its O1 Omni Printer, and it’s revealing a feature the company kept quiet through the entire pre-order run: desktop 3D embroidery.
The pre-order phase went well for xTool, which has US headquarters in California and global headquarters in China. The company says it pulled in over $20 million US across roughly 6,000 orders before the machine even shipped.
The pitch for the O1 is simple. One machine prints on hard surfaces and fabric. It has two printheads and covers four printing methods: UV for rigid materials, DTG (direct-to-garment) for printing straight onto clothing, DTF (direct-to-film) for fabric transfers, and UV DTF for stickers and decals on hard surfaces. That means wood, acrylic, glass and metal on the same desk where you print T-shirts.
You choose your setup when you buy. Dual UV is the faster option for layered work on hard materials. The hybrid UV and fabric version does everything, but a bit slower.
The embroidery feature is the new part. It pairs DTG printing with an embroidery kit to build up raised, full-colour textures instead of flat prints. An AI tool called “Embossed Embroidery” takes a regular flat image and turns it into a 3D texture designed to look like real stitching. There’s also a library of over 2,000 textures and a lenticular generator, which creates images that appear to move as you change viewing angle.
Most printers use a fish-eye camera to see what’s on the bed, which distorts the edges. xTool went a different route with what it calls Pixel-Scan, a flatbed-style scanner paired with a laser that measures height. The practical benefit is that the printer finds the tallest point on your object automatically, so the printhead doesn’t smash into it. For tumblers and cups, the software builds a 3D model first, and xTool says it works with 90% of common tumblers without needing a jig to hold them in place.
If you already own an xTool laser engraver, the two machines talk to each other. Cut a shape on the laser, move it over to the O1, and the software finds the piece and lines up the print on its own. It also recognizes odd shapes and prints around holes, like a camera cutout on a phone case.
Maintenance is usually the annoying part of owning an inkjet, since nozzles clog if you don’t run them. xTool says its SmartCycle 2.0 system handles nozzle cleaning automatically, and a “Clog-Free Vacation Mode” lets you leave the printer alone for up to two weeks and come back to a working machine. The company also lists G7-level colour accuracy, plus GREENGUARD Gold certification for the UV inks and OEKO-TEX for the textile inks, which are safety standards for emissions and skin contact.
Pricing breaks down across three configs:
Anyone who put down a pre-order deposit can finish their payment now to lock in early bird pricing plus a $459 US bonus package. Early bird rates are still open to new buyers for a limited time before everything moves to standard MSRP.
Lots of craft market sellers and hobby crafters use these machines to create their goods. The whole process can be run from the xTool Creative Space Mobile app for iOS and Android. This is crafting taken to a whole new level here.
Worth noting that most of the performance claims here come from xTool itself, so it’ll be worth seeing how the embroidery workflow and the jigless tumbler printing hold up in real use.
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