FAQ

General

What is TigerSystem? An open ecosystem for 3D printing built around one idea: a filament spool’s identity belongs to its owner, not to a printer brand. See Why TigerSystem exists.

Do I need to buy anything to start? No. Any NFC smartphone reads TigerTag chips, the apps are free, and the desktop app is open source. Chips themselves are the only consumable.

Is this tied to one filament brand or printer brand? No — neutrality is a design rule. Any filament, any printer, no partner list.

Are these apps THE product? No — the user-facing side is deliberately a sandbox. Every app and device we create for end users (Tiger Studio, Tiger NFC Connect, TigerScale, TigerPOD, and projects to come) is a working proof of concept: its only goal is to show the potential of an open-source, standard, agnostic, cross-platform protocol, and to inspire others to imagine the features of tomorrow. Use them, fork them, or build your own instead. The factory side, on the other hand, is production-grade: an industrial toolchain programs the chips at line speed in partner factories — that part is no experiment. See A sandbox, on purpose.

Why do you build all these demonstrators yourselves? Because nobody else did. More than 2.5 million TigerTag chips have been produced and ship in filament spools, and we assumed the community would invent uses for an open NFC identity on its own — it didn’t happen. Building the demonstrators was never the initial goal; it became necessary to show what the protocol makes possible. The full story: The story behind the sandbox.

TigerTag (chips)

What chip is a TigerTag? A standard NTAG NFC chip carrying an open 144-byte payload — brand, material, color, diameter, print settings. No keys, no encryption on the data. See The TigerTag chip.

Can I rewrite a chip? Yes — chips are rewritable, which is the point of the Second Life workflow: refill or re-purpose a spool and re-encode its chip.

What is TigerTag+? A TigerTag your account has backed up. Scan the chip in Tiger Studio with a TigerPOD/ACR122U reader (mobile support coming) and its exact content — factory authentication included — is saved, keyed to that chip’s physical UID. If the chip is ever rewritten or corrupted, you can reprogram it back to its factory state — on the original chip only (the UID must match the backup). See TigerTag+.

Where do I buy chips? Two equally valid answers. Official TigerTag-branded chips are at tigertag.io and through official distributors (currently Atome3D, with more joining soon) — buying them helps support the R&D. But any cheap, blank NTAG chip from Amazon, AliExpress or your local shop works identically, and that’s deliberate: nothing is blocked, the protocol is the point.

Which blank chip should I buy exactly? NTAG213, 215 or 216 — round, 25 mm is the recommendation. The protocol is deliberately optimized to fit the small NTAG213 (144 bytes); 215/216 work identically with unused space left over. Other shapes work too, but 25 mm round is the format the ecosystem’s readers and holders are designed around.

Which filament brands ship TigerTag from the factory? More than 2.5 million chips have been produced — making TigerTag the most deployed third-party RFID protocol in the world; most are integrated at the factory by third-party filament brands — Rosa3D, eSun, Sunlu, Landu, Jamg He, R3D — with Filforme, Nanovia and more being integrated.

How does a chip get on a spool? It sticks on — and there are two per spool, on opposite sides. That’s deliberate: printers often share one RFID reader between two slots, so a chip must face the reader whatever side the spool sits on; you can hand-scan without flipping the spool; you can scan it without pulling it out of its slot; and if one chip fails the other still answers. Bonus: every empty spool gives you two reusable chips. See why two chips.

Do I need internet to read a chip? No. The chip’s payload is complete and self-sufficient: phone in airplane mode, offline desktop — the spool still introduces itself.

I’d rather use another NFC protocol (OpenSpool, my own…) — am I stuck with TigerTag? No. Chips are never write-locked: TigerTag is just the base protocol spools ship with from the factory. You are free to rewrite the chip and migrate its data to any other NFC/RFID protocol, custom or existing.

What happens to the chip when the spool is empty? It gets a second life — never a landfill. Re-encode it for the next spool, or convert it to standard NDEF and turn it into anything NFC: a keychain, a business card, a connected object. Official branded chips switched to NTAG215 precisely to leave memory headroom for that reuse: a spool’s chip should never become electronic waste. See Second Life.

Will the chip survive a heated chamber or a filament dryer? In normal use, no chip failures have been reported from the field — including from users who run filament dryers. Two things work in the chip’s favor: you never actually read it hot (scans happen at ambient temperature, not mid-print inside a chamber), and it’s standard NTAG hardware — for formal temperature ratings, refer to NXP’s NTAG213/215/216 datasheets.

What is a .ttag file? A portable, offline snapshot of one or more of your spools — the unit for backing up, carrying on a USB stick, and sharing your filaments. Export one spool or a whole selection from Tiger Studio; import with a full preview and a choice between Restore (same account) and Import (adopt as fresh spools). Full spec: the .ttag format.

Can I use TigerSystem with no chips at all? Yes — that’s TigerData: the same protocol data in purely digital form, no chip, no UID. The identity lives in your inventory (or anywhere digital) and behaves like any other spool. Write it into an NFC chip later — atomically, when you’re ready — and it becomes a TigerTag, with a physical UID finally associated. See One identity, three states.

Tiger Studio (desktop)

What platforms? Windows, macOS and Linux (Electron). Downloads on the releases page.

Do I need an NFC reader? No — the app works standalone. An ACR122U reader (or a TigerPOD stand) adds instant spool identification and chip encoding.

Which printers can it drive? Six brands live: Anycubic, Bambu Lab, Creality, Elegoo, FlashForge, Snapmaker — see the compatibility matrix.

Slicers & the printing workflow

Do I have to change my slicer? No. Keep OrcaSlicer, your vendor’s slicer, whatever you like — TigerSystem doesn’t slice and doesn’t want to. You slice and launch jobs exactly as before. See where the slicer fits.

Then what does TigerSystem add to printing? Two things. First, the machine-side filament info matches reality: Tiger Studio pushes each spool’s data to the printer’s slots (AMS, CFS, Canvas, ACE, material station). Second, live monitoring: whatever launched the print, the job shows up in Tiger Studio with progress, temperatures, a wall-clock “ends at” time and the camera — across your whole fleet, all brands mixed.

Can the chip configure my slicer profile automatically? Not today. The chip carries the filament’s recommended settings (temperatures…); you mirror them in your slicer profile yourself.

I have printers from three different brands. Problem? The opposite — that’s the point. One printers table for the whole fleet, with brand / state / tag filters, whatever the mix of the six supported brands.

TigerHub (the ecosystem’s web home)

What is TigerHub? The web platform at tigersystem.io. It presents the TigerSystem ecosystem — the showcase of what the open protocol makes possible — and hosts the social side of the sandbox, all live today: your account on the web, wishlists (public and friends-only), friend codes and invitations, public list sharing, plus the material catalogue, the reference database browser, 3D models and more. See TigerHub.

Can I show my collection to someone without an app? Yes — TigerHub serves read-only list links: anyone with the link views it in a plain browser, no app, no account.

Is TigerHub the database behind the apps? No. The accounts and data live in plain Firebase — one shared database, in one place, so all the sandbox elements interoperate. TigerHub is the web surface built on top of it.

Tiger NFC Connect (mobile)

What does the mobile app do? NFC scanning and chip programming on the go, catalogue browsing, and full inventory sync with the same account as the desktop app.

Where do I download it? It’s released on the App Store and Google Play as Tiger NFC Connect (formerly “TigerTag RFID Connect”), with public betas on both platforms. All links: tigersystem.io/fr/download.

TigerScale & sensors

What is TigerScale? An open-source ESP32 scale for filament spools. Put a spool on it and its live weight flows straight into your inventory — visible instantly on desktop, mobile and shared views. See TigerScale.

Wait — the chip already knows everything, why a scale? The chip knows what the filament is; only a scale knows how much is left. They’re the two halves of a truly useful inventory: identity from the chip, live quantity from the scale.

Do I need a TigerScale to track weight? No. You can set or adjust a spool’s weight manually in the apps at any time — the scale just makes it automatic, live and effortless. Tiger Studio also reads standard USB “HID Scale” devices — the DYMO M series (M5, M10, M25…) and any compliant scale — as a third-party option (details).

Can I build one myself? Yes — that’s the point. Hardware design and firmware are fully open (MIT) in the Tiger-Scale repo.

What about the empty spool’s own weight? Tiger Studio’s container calibration lets you measure a container’s real empty weight once; it’s then applied to every spool in that container, so the number you see is net filament, not plastic reel.

What is the TD-1 / TD1s? A third-party filament analyzer by AJAX-3D, in two variants that both work with the ecosystem: TD-1 (the DIY version — build it yourself) and TD1s (pre-assembled, ready to use out of the box). Its primary job is measuring a filament’s Transmission Distance (“TD” — how much light the material lets through), the value HueForge / Full Spectrum printing users can’t live without; it also reads the color (RGB, 1–3 slots) — slightly less precise, but a good indication. Tiger Studio integrates it natively over USB, and Tiger NFC Connect supports it over USB-C on mobile. The measured TD can be stored in the TigerTag protocol itself — on the NFC chip, or in the .ttag file format. A third-party accessory and the open ecosystem working together, as intended.

Cloud & inventory

Where is my inventory stored? In your own TigerSystem account — plain Firebase (Firestore), one shared database used by all the apps. Every device you sign into sees the same data in real time. See Inventory & cloud sync.

Does it work offline? Chips are fully readable offline; apps keep a local cache. Printer links are LAN-local and don’t need the internet at all (except Anycubic cloud mode).

I don’t want ANY cloud. Can I still use TigerTag? Yes, 100 %. The chip’s payload is complete and self-sufficient: read it, write it, and manage a fully local inventory with no cloud, no account, no server — the JS and Python SDKs exist precisely to make that easy in your own or DIY projects. Even TigerTag+ authenticates locally, without an internet connection. The cloud layer is optional comfort (multi-device sync, sharing), never a requirement — we propose one vision of the TigerTag user, and every other vision is accepted and encouraged.

I know nothing about NFC or RFID — is this for me? Especially for you. The whole experience is designed novice-first: tap a spool with your phone, it introduces itself, done. No jargon required — the technical layers exist for those who want to dig, not as a prerequisite.

Can other people see my spools? Only if you choose: accepted friends, a public toggle, or a TigerHub share link. Everything is private by default and enforced server-side.

What happens if the TigerTag cloud shuts down one day? The design answer to that fear is openness: the chip format is public, chips read fully offline forever, the SDKs and the desktop app are open source, and the cloud surface is documented. Your spools cannot be “bricked” by a server — that’s precisely the difference with a manufacturer’s silo.

RFID & compatibility

Can Tiger Studio read Bambu/Creality/… native tags? Not yet — the right way to handle interoperability is still an open question. Read-only decoding specs are documented for seven vendor formats, and the work under way aims at converting vendor tag data into TigerData digital spools, so other brands’ filament can be scanned and managed in the ecosystem. See compatibility.

Why are manufacturer tags locked and TigerTag isn’t? Locked tags serve vendor lock-in. TigerTag’s answer is an openly readable format — see User-centric vs printer-centric.

What about resin printers? Coming: TigerTag is being extended to resins — the same open identity on resin containers for resin 3D printers.

Does TigerTag work with a printer that has no RFID reader? Yes — that’s the smartphone bridge: your phone (or a desktop reader) identifies the spool, and the system feeds the data to the printer.

Troubleshooting

My chip doesn’t scan on my phone. Check NFC is enabled and find your phone’s antenna sweet spot; tags read best flat against it. If the chip reads in one app but not another, update the app.

My printer doesn’t appear in Tiger Studio. Ensure the printer is on the same LAN, in LAN mode where relevant, then try “Add by IP” — discovery methods vary per brand.

Real cases welcome — report yours on the official Discord or GitHub issues; this section grows from them.

Developers

Has anyone actually built on TigerTag? Yes — and independently of us: OpenRFID (community multi-vendor RFID toolkit) reads TigerTags; Spooly Tracker (inventory platform, web + mobile) identifies spools with TigerTags; and the Snapmaker U1 Extended Firmware makes the U1 the first printer that reads TigerTags natively. See third-party integrations.

Can I build my own app on TigerTag? Yes, without permission: open chip spec, SDKs (JS & Python), and a documented cloud surface with working ESP32 / Home Assistant / Spoolman examples.

Can I plug TigerTag into my ERP or internal stock software? Yes — that’s exactly the kind of use the open protocol invites. A scan (NFC phone or ACR122U USB reader) gives you the spool’s identity; what you do with it — stock management, job tracking, traceability, reordering, R&D — is your call. See What can you build?

What hardware do I need to read chips in my own project? Any NFC smartphone, an ACR122U-class USB reader on a computer — or go full DIY: a simple ESP32 with a PN532 or RC522 reader module is enough (that’s how TigerScale does it). Commodity, cheap, no proprietary gear.

Is the Firebase config being public a security hole? No — that’s the standard Firebase pattern. All enforcement is server-side in security rules; a client can only touch its own user’s data.

Manufacturers

We’re a filament brand — how do we ship TigerTag-tagged spools? Quickly: a production line can be up and running with TigerTag in as little as 5 days, at very low cost, with each chip written in about 1 second — proven with more than 2.5 million chips already shipped by Rosa3D, eSun, Sunlu, Landu, Jamg He and R3D. And every brand that joins strengthens the collective case for printer manufacturers to read TigerTag natively. Read For filament manufacturers, then reach out at tigertag@tigertag.io.

Can my product become “TigerTag Certified”? Yes — TigerTag Certified is the certification mark, working as a quality label, for three cases: third-party products that read and/or write TigerTags (a printer, a dryer, a reader…); filament manufacturers that ship TigerTags in their products; and third-party apps (mobile or desktop) — certification guarantees the protocol is perfectly integrated in that third-party ecosystem. Reach out through the GitHub organization.

We’re a printer maker — can our firmware read TigerTag? Yes — NTAG/NDEF readers are commodity hardware, the payload spec is public (TigerTag-RFID-Guide), and adding TigerTag reading to a firmware takes under 3 days.

Community

Where do I ask questions or get help? The official Discord — questions, help, feedback, show-and-tell. For bugs and technical issues, each repo’s GitHub issues work too.

How do I contribute? Docs: CONTRIBUTING.md here. Code: each repo’s own guide — see the repository map.

Can I fork it all and build something else? Yes. MIT/CC-licensed, deliberately forkable — just respect the trademark policy.