Glowforge launches the Aura, a more accessible laser cutter

Laser cutters are nothing new, but Glowforge has a long history of adding something that the category has sorely been lacking: Ease of use. Today, the company announces the Aura. Smaller, cheaper and even easier to use than its bigger brother, the device is perfect for education, craft and light prototyping work.

Carrying a $1,199 price tag, the Glowforge Aura can carve up wood, leather, acrylic, paper, stone, metal and other materials. The company doubles down on its ease of use by offering materials especially selected for the machine. The built-in camera reads the QR code, and the correct settings for cutting, scoring (i.e. marking but not cutting all the way through) and engraving are automatically selected by the machine. Of course, you’re not limited to the materials provided by Glowforge, and you can use the machine’s built-in settings as a starting point for your own craft projects.

The Aura can be vented out a window, or be paired with an air filter so it can be used indoors. The air filter automatically pairs with the Aura, and turns itself on to extract the smoke and fumes from the device when it’s running. At least, that’s the theory — in practice, I filled up my apartment with smoke a number of times when the air filter failed to come on.

The air filter was great when it worked. Unfortunately, it wasn’t particularly consistent, and I found myself sitting in a cloud of wood smoke, wishing it just had a manual “on” button as well as its smart features. The button that looks like an “on” button, is not. Image Credits: Haje Kamps / TechCrunch

After a dozen emails back and forth with the customer support team, they sent out a new air filter — which worked more consistently, but also failed to turn on for a few of the cuts. Not ideal, but the team assures me that software updates will make the air filter more consistent over time. The issue also shows the downside of having a “foolproof” system that’s meant to “just work” — if something goes wrong, I never found a way to manually turn the air filter on to extract smoke.

Update: Moments before this article went live, I got an email from Glowforge’s CEO, Dan Shapiro, who tells me that they listened to my feedback, and implemented a way to manually run the air filter.

“We just implemented your suggestion: if the printer isn’t connected, the button turns teal and can be used as a switch to toggle between off, medium, and full power,” Shapiro emailed me. “That should serve as a backup in case anyone in the future winds up here again. That update just went out so all new owners will have it.”

On the right-hand side of the photo, contrasted against the chair: That’s… a lot more smoke than I’m comfortable having in my apartment. Image Credits: Haje Kamps / TechCrunch

The aforementioned built-in camera makes the machine almost foolproof to use. With the web-based control software, you can see exactly where you’re about to cut, and position your material just so. The software lets you select the type of cuts you want to make, along with the order of cuts — in my experience, engraving and cutting the inner parts of a complex design before cutting the outline of a print is usually the best way to go.

The problem is that the camera isn’t super accurate. I’ll get back to that when I try to engrave a phone case in just a moment, but even using Glowforge’s official Proofgrade materials, there are quirks. Below, you can see a bunny I tried to cut; the software thinks I’m well within the lines, but when cutting, the beastie’s toes were dangling off the edge. That meant I had to reprint parts of it, wasting material.

Trying to cut a bunny near the edge, but well within it… Image Credits: Haje Kamps / TechCrunch

Over the years, I’ve used tons of different laser cutters, and most of them have something in common: They are fantastically powerful, but also very hard to use. Some of them need to be focused manually; others need to be carefully configured through trial and error whenever you use a new material. The Aura suffers from none of these issues.

Glowforge’s Aura is to laser cutters what the Cricut was to vinyl cutters: Professional users who are used to more industrial machines will be disappointed. The Aura has limited flexibility and can’t be used for as many use cases as they might be used to. Overall, the Aura has all the advantages and disadvantages you’d expect from a craft-grade device. The material thickness is limited, so if you want to laser engrave an item that’s an inch thick, you’re probably out of luck.

I also ran into issues with materials that do, in theory, fit inside the Glowforge. I tried to laser-engrave a phone case, for example, but the first few attempts, it fired its lasers off the side of the case. After a fair amount of trial and error, I was able to get it all set up and calibrated as expected. Still, if part of the target audience of the Aura is students and makers, phone cases seem like a pretty obvious choice.

I tried a tiny one-millimeter test score to see if the laser was outputting the right power. Hilariously, the Aura tried to cut about 10mm next to its target area, time and time again. Image Credits: Haje Kamps / TechCrunch

Eventually, I asked the Aura to draw a circle around the Apple logo on my phone. The alignment is off, but in addition to that, it looks like the laser didn’t focus properly (the line should be a lot thinner than that), resulting in one ruined leather phone case. Womp-womp. Image Credits: Haje Kamps / TechCrunch

The professional in me is annoyed that the Aura doesn’t have an “outline print” feature found on professional lasers: This would make the laser do a low-output pass over the outside of the print area. It won’t mark the material, but it does show whether it is aligned properly. I’m also annoyed that I couldn’t find a way to focus the laser manually.

Still, whining about these limitations does a disservice to the Aura — it doesn’t pretend to be a professional tool. In its press materials, the company describes it as a “craft machine,” and positions itself as a replacement for craft cutters: Replacing razor blades with a beam of light, essentially. 

Glowforge’s software comes with a number of fonts that are great for making stencils. In the foreground: One of the functional parts I made with plywood, dowels and wood glue. Image Credits: Haje Kamps / TechCrunch

Time will tell whether that positioning works, but I suspect it isn’t an accident that the company is trying to go downmarket: The advanced amateur market is covered by the original Glowforge machines; the $7,000 Pro, or the $5,000 Plus. Neither of those price points are particularly hobbyist friendly, and the $1,200 price point puts it within reach of maker spaces, hobbyists and crafters who see the need for creating repeatable patterns on the fly.

Glowforge Aura also works the Magic Canvas functionality I covered a while back, which removes even the need to be able to design your own prints. Magic Canvas transforms simple descriptions into tangible art forms like hardwood jewelry, slate coasters and more. Perfect for the crafting and doing-a-project-with-the-kids market, Magic Canvas can generate custom clip-art in tons of different styles, making crafting even more accessible than before.

In reviewing the device, I played with a number of different materials, but in the end I ended up cutting more paper than I was expecting, and using the paper as spray-paint stencils. I also cut a fair few functional parts that I would have otherwise 3D printed, but I realized that stacking plywood with dowels and wood glue to hold it all together made parts that were both sturdier and faster to produce — not to mention more resistant to heat — than parts made with a 3D printer.

Glowforge’s Aura isn’t the cheapest laser cutter out there, but it packs many ease-of-use and safety features into a relatively affordable package. The teenager in me really wishes these things were around when I was a teenager; it would have been really fun to learn to craft and create with one of these.

The Aura goes on sale today, and can be purchased through retailers JOANN, Michaels, and HSN.

What your aura says about you

Glowforge Aura

Craft lasers are fun. They can cut, burn, shape, and etch anything from acrylic and leather to stone and wood. They can do so much more than craft cutters like the Cricut Maker 3 ($429.99), but they are usually bigger and much more expensive, like the Glowforge Pro ($6,995) or even the Glowforge Basic ($2,495). The Glowforge Aura ($1,199) is the first craft laser we’ve tested that isn’t too big or too expensive for amateur craftspeople. It keeps costs down by using a laser diode rather than a CO2 laser tube, though it is weaker and a bit limited when compared with pricier models. It’s an ideal entry-level craft laser for those interested in working with a variety of materials, and it earns their Editors’ Choice award for craft machines.

The Aura measures 5.0 by 22.0 by 20.5 inches (HWD). It takes up significantly less space than the Glowforge Basic (8.3 by 38.0 by 20.8 inches) and can easily find a home in a typical craft space. The trade-off is the available work area: It has a cutting area of 12 by 12 inches and a maximum material thickness of 0.75 inches compared with the Basic’s 11-by-19.5-inch cutting area and 2.0-inch maximum material thickness. The Aura has pass-through slots, so you can feed material of any length up to 12 inches wide and 0.18 inches thick if you want to work on longer pieces.

Its design is similar to other Glowforge lasers, though the Aura is almost entirely white with an amber lid compared with the bigger models’ silver top panels. The large, flip-up lid consumes most of the laser’s top surface as well as a good portion of the front. Its only control is a circular white button in the front right corner of the top panel, which begins cutting jobs and doubles as an indicator light. The back of the laser holds only a connector for the included power cable and a large, circular exhaust port.

The interior cavity has a square recess in the bottom that holds a removable metal “crumb tray” that can collect residue and scraps from jobs. It can be taken out to support slightly wider workpieces. Above it, the laser module sits on a magnetic mount attached to two metal bars. The mount travels horizontally while the bars move vertically to let the laser reach all parts of its cutting area.

As for the laser module, it is a black plastic cube attached to the back of the cavity with a ribbon cable. The cube holds the laser diode, which is significantly smaller than the cavity-wide CO2 tube of larger Glowforge lasers. The cavity also features a camera mounted on the underside of the lid, which can preview and monitor jobs as well as identify QR codes on Glowforge’s Proofgrade materials.

Glowforge opted for a different type of laser to keep costs under control. The Aura’s laser is a 6W 450nm blue laser diode, compared with the 40W and 45W 10,600nm CO2 tube lasers of the Glowforge Plus and Glowforge Pro. It’s slower than the larger lasers, approximately one-seventh the speed of the Plus. The difference in speed is unsurprising.

This blue laser diode poses a limitation the CO2-based Glowforge models don’t have. Because of the laser’s wavelength, it isn’t effective on transparent acrylic materials; it barely scores some transparent colors and simply shines through others. It also can’t etch mirrored acrylic.

Don't fret, though, as the Glowforge Aura works with many other materials, cutting up to 0.25 inches and engraving up to 0.75 inches. Its supported material list includes acrylic, leather, and wood for both engraving and cutting; cardstock, paper, and veneer for cutting; and aluminum and slate for engraving. The Glowforge Pro can cut or engrave materials up to 2.0 inches thick and doesn’t have any color or transparency limitations when working with acrylic. The Cricut Maker 3, meanwhile, can handle aluminum, cardstock, fabric, leather, paper, and vinyl, but it requires additional blades for different materials, and it can’t cut anything thicker than cardstock or fabric. None of the lasers work with vinyl; burning vinyl releases a gas that can damage the laser components. Glowforge offers Eco Iron-On material as an alternative to heat transfer vinyl.

Like any craft laser, the Glowforge Aura produces dust and fumes from the material it cuts, so it requires ventilation. It comes with a flexible plastic exhaust duct that can be routed to an open window; an internal fan blows exhaust outward through it. If your workspace isn’t near a window, Glowforge offers a $399 trash-can-sized air filter for the exhaust.

The Aura connects to the internet over Wi-Fi and is controlled via the Glowforge app for Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows. You need to create a free account to use it, and you can optionally subscribe to Glowforge Premium for $50 per month or $239 per year to gain access to more features.

You'll find the Glowforge app easy to use if you have a compatible image file for what you want to make. Glowforge supports most major file formats including BMP, GIF, JPG, PDF, PNG, and SVG. Once you upload a file, the app will process it and determine how to engrave and cut it. SVG files work best if you want to make precise cuts, while JPGs and other files will usually be converted into engraving instructions. With the file or files processed, the object components the app identifies will be loaded onto the work area, which shows the camera view of the cavity. If you don’t have any image files to go on, you can also just place a drawn design in the Aura and use the camera to scan and trace that design.

Unless you know exactly how to get the app to process the results you want, you’ll probably need a Glowforge Premium subscription. Glowforge Premium provides access to over a thousand projects, two million vector art files, and 1,200 fonts. More importantly, it enables placing shapes, patterns, and text directly on your projects instead of preparing those details in your image files. Basically, you need Glowforge Premium to cut out anything or to add custom names or other text to projects. It’s not a big limitation if you’re a vector art pro, but if you’re just starting out using a craft laser you’ll probably need the extra tools.

Without Glowforge Premium, you can still buy projects and vector art piecemeal through the app. The costs can vary wildly, from $0.99 to $50, with choices for both single prints and unlimited access. There’s little logic to how these designs are priced, and not all designs are free with Glowforge Premium. You can always look for vector art and even laser-ready project files from sites like Thingiverse and Printables.

I tested several different materials for several different projects, including foldable art cards, acrylic stands, wooden placards, and slate coasters. When working with paper, wood, and even stone, the Aura is fantastic. Acrylic, meanwhile, can be hit-or-miss.

Wood projects came out great in testing, especially with the Proofgrade wood materials Glowforge sent with the Aura. Both cutting and etching were consistent, with one exception. The Proofgrade materials have stickers with QR codes on them so the laser can automatically identify them. They don’t pose a problem for cutting, but when I engraved a pattern on some hardwood, the etching was lighter where the laser had to burn through the sticker as well as the protective film. For large engraving patterns, you should keep the design away from the sticker, or scratch it off and manually enter the material into the app instead.

I experimented with some cheap plywood squares from a craft store and I found etching and cutting to be similarly consistent after I did some experimentation with the Proofgrade plywood presets; the lighter, thinner squares needed less power to avoid being completely burned through during etches.

I tried the laser with some slate coasters and was pleasantly surprised. The Aura can’t engrave stone with the same three-dimensional texture it can apply to softer materials, but it burns the dark coasters a pleasant white while keeping them smooth. The coasters I produced came out quite nice, whether I used simple logos, more complex iconography, or photos (which I processed both before uploading them to the Glowforge app and within the app using brightness and contrast sliders).

I used the laser to cut some card stock for papercut folding art, which involved taking a PDF pattern from Popupology and manually turning it into an SVG file in Inkscape. Tracing in Inkscape is simple, but the Glowforge app converts all dotted and dashed lines into straight lines, so I had to put my own dashes in one by one for folds. Despite this nuisance, the cuts came out perfectly. The results were precise and sharp, a bit cleaner than projects made with the Cricut Maker 3, which requires using an adhesive pad to keep paper in place. 

Acrylic was the most difficult and limited material to work with. The laser could engrave and cut the opaque Proofgrade samples Glowforge sent, but engraving on opaque acrylic didn't result in a clear picture. Cutting generally worked well, but occasionally the laser didn’t go all the way through. Making sure the camera, laser lens, and track are all clean by wiping them down with lens wipes or lint-free cloth with rubbing alcohol every 10 hours helps maintain consistency for cutting harder materials like acrylic; it requires two passes, and if there’s any buildup of dust on the laser’s track, those two passes can become slightly misaligned, preventing the full cut from occurring.

Just as frustratingly, the laser occasionally stopped partway through long engraving jobs, leaving pieces half engraved and half blank. This also seems to be the result of debris and dust buildup, so you really have to keep the interior of the laser clear and the components clean with regular wiping down. Even then, you might end up wasting time and workpieces. It's definitely a more temperamental device than the larger Glowforge lasers.

To its credit, the air filter kept my apartment from filling with dust and fumes from the cuts. As long as I waited a few minutes after each job, no unpleasant smell wafted out of the laser. The filter is very loud, though; it’s like listening to an upright vacuum cleaner at full blast for as long as your project runs. Get headphones if you’re going to be in the same room as the laser while it works.

Glowforge brings laser cutting and etching to the home craft masses with the Aura. It’s limited compared with the Performance series, but it’s also a lot cheaper at $1,199. It’s easy to cut and engrave many different materials, either with the patterns and tools Glowforge offers via its subscription or with your own files, though it doesn't work with some acrylics. Its accessible price and size open up a whole new world of crafting, and for that earns it their Editors’ Choice for craft lasers. If you’re sticking with cardstock, leather, and paper, or want to work extensively with vinyl, the Cricut Maker 3 is a more economical choice at less than half the price of the Aura.