During June, xTool has been releasing information about the O1 Omni bit by bit. After apologizing for the delay, they announced a schedule of five reveals—on the 9th, 15th, 22nd, 24th, and 29th—and have been publishing them in their community.
We won’t repeat the brochure here. We’ll take the three that provide usable technical information and translate them into what they mean for those who will work with the machine, not for those who just see it at a trade show.
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The “4 in 1”: what those four things really are
The first reveal was the general framework: a single machine to go from rigid material to fabric. The four pillars are direct UV, UV DTF, DTG, and DTF, and the key is that the textile model features a dual-head system: one for UV ink and another for direct-to-fabric ink.
This deserves a clarification that the brand doesn’t make because it’s not in their interest: those four acronyms represent four workflows, not four buttons.
- Direct UV: piece inside, printed, out. It’s the clean workflow.
- UV DTF: print on film and transfer. Consumables and a manual step appear.
- DTG: water-based ink on garment. Requires prior preparation and heat afterward.
- Textile DTF: print, powder with adhesive, cure, and iron. Four steps, three of them outside the printer.
That all four fit in one machine is excellent news. That all four cost the same to do is not. When the full workflows are published, we’ll have to see how many additional devices are needed for each.
Smart Cycle 2.0: the section that matters most to us
The second reveal is about ink and maintenance, and it’s the one that raised our eyebrows—in a good way. Anyone familiar with printing knows that a printer doesn’t break down from printing: it breaks down from being idle. White ink sediments, nozzles dry out, and one day you come back from vacation and the machine won’t start.
What they announce:
Active agitation and circulation of the white ink. Not just stirring the ink inside the cartridge, but also moving it through the circuit. White is the ink with the highest pigment load and the first to settle; it’s exactly the right problem to tackle.
Ceramic heating module. To keep the ink at a stable working temperature. They justify it thinking about cold workshops, garages, and warehouses, which is where this kind of machine really lives in winter.
Vacation mode with humidifying liquid. For long stops, a system that replaces the ink with a humidifier that protects the printhead, with a maintenance buffer that switches between the two.
Humidity sensor and app alerts, plus several cleaning modes depending on how long the machine has been idle.
On paper, this is the right answer to the classic complaint about desktop UV printers. However, all these are announced features of a machine that hasn’t been released yet: no one outside the brand has returned from three weeks away and reported what they found when turning it on. That’s what we’ll have to see.
Update from July 28. That gap is no longer completely empty. Beta testers are publishing real work—full-color t-shirts on black fabric, medals with twenty-layer bas-relief and varnish, canvas, a felt hat printed with flexible white—and one of them left the machine idle for five weeks due to a family emergency and upon return printed just like before. This is the first field test of the rest mode, and it’s heading in the right direction. It’s still not the same as a workshop producing daily: these are creators with loaned machines, not businesses with profit and loss accounts. But the sentence above, written at the end of June, is already outdated.
The accessory ecosystem
The fourth reveal is the catalog of accessories, and this is where you see what the machine is really designed for.
Rotary. For mugs, thermal cups, bottles, glasses, and cans, with 3D preview to position the design before printing. For a personalized gift workshop, this is not an accessory: it’s half a product line.
Laminator. Crystal-type stickers, gold, silver, and holographic foil, labels, and decals. It’s the accessory that turns a print into a branded-finish product.
Roll feeder. The numbers they give are specific: up to 15 meters of UV DTF film and up to 12 meters of canvas or vinyl. It’s useful for repeated runs without changing the piece by hand, which is where production time is lost.
Garment tray. T-shirts, tote bags, towels, fabric patches.
The commercial message is clear—“a design can become an entire collection”—and it’s well put. But it’s worth reading it with a calculator nearby: each of these accessories is purchased separately, and the real budget for the machine is the machine plus whatever you need from this list.
And just today, the deposits
While we were writing this, xTool opened the deposits. The data they provide:
- Launch price from $1,699.
- $50 deposit that unlocks $459 in gifts.
- Ink from $12.99.
The ink price is the most interesting of the three because in printing, consumables rule. But watch out for what that headline doesn’t say: “from” means the cheapest cartridge, and we still don’t know how many cartridges each configuration uses or how long each lasts. A low price per cartridge with many cartridges and high consumption can be more expensive than the opposite.
What’s still missing
As of June 30, despite all the reveals, these boxes remain unchecked:
- Which specific configurations will be sold and what each includes.
- The price and lifespan of the printhead. It’s the part that determines the two-year cost and hasn’t been mentioned.
- Real speed per job, with a recognizable piece and a specific size.
- Pieces made by people outside the brand that can be examined up close.
A refundable $50 deposit is a small bet, and it’s understandable that many people make it to secure the launch gifts. We’re still waiting: the list above weighs more than $459 in accessories.
Written by Noemi and Javi, from Picasita. We are xTool affiliates and our workshop is a brand demonstration space; we buy our machines with our own money. More about this blog and our relationship with xTool.
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