A 3D scanner is an amazing tool to add to your 3D printing workflow, allowing you to scan real-life objects to import into sculpting or CAD software, then print out your own modified copies on a 3D printer. In the past, a good scanner cost thousands of dollars, but Creality has finally given us a device within reach of hobby-level consumers. The Creality Pika is easy to use, with the look, feel, and size of a point-and-shoot digital camera. It can wirelessly tether to a mobile phone running a Creality scanning app, which makes scanning on the go easier than ever before.

It can also be tethered to a laptop wirelessly or with a cable for more stable scanning, but marker-free laser scanning can only be performed while physically tethered to a computer. The scanner runs on AA-sized rechargeable batteries, which are provided.

It weighs just 260 grams (just slightly over a half-pound) with the batteries installed, reducing arm fatigue when operating without a tripod. A tabletop tripod and manual turntable are included for scanning small items. While not as precise as Creality’s Sermoon series, the Creality Pika, currently on pre-order for $699, is a fraction of the price. The best part is that both use the same software, Creality Scan, which is excellent.

The Creality Pika’s portability and price make this one of the best scanners we’ve reviewed in 2026.

Specifications: Creality Pika

Included in the Box: Creality Pika

The Creality Pika comes with a very nice tripod. Also included are the glass calibration board, a manual turntable, marking blocks, batteries (including a spare), a generous pack of marking dots, and a mostly useless quick start guide. The Quick Start guide is just a packing list in eleven different languages and QR codes to Creality’s website and Facebook community.

Design of the Creality Pika

The Creality Pika is a small handheld scanner that weighs only 260 g with its battery. It has a 3-inch touch screen on the back that shows the scan in progress while paired to a phone or PC on Wi-Fi, or allows exposure and zoom adjustments when scanning via cord. There are two buttons on the top of the scanner for power and start/stop, and a selector switch for USB or Wi-Fi.

The scanner has a play button to start and stop scans, as well as a button to adjust the lights and a toggle for zoom. The front of the scanner has an RGB camera, two 3D scanning cameras, a DOE projector, a parallel-line laser, four blue and white fill lights, and four infrared fill lights. There is an always-on cooling fan with grills on the top and bottom of the scanner. Two batteries are included, which can be charged in the camera or via a USB-C port located near the top of the battery.

The batteries, curiously, have both positive and negative terminals on top of the battery. Care should be taken when carrying these to avoid shorting them together with anything metal in a purse or pocket.

Getting Started and Calibrating the Creality Pika

The Creality Pika uses a glass calibration board to do an initial calibration of the scanner. The calibration process involves holding the scanner above the board at various heights and at various angles. The process takes about ten minutes.

Installing the Software for Creality Pika

Creality Scan app can be downloaded from Creality's website, with versions for PC, Mac, Android, and iPhone. A really good user guide with links to tutorials and troubleshooting help is located on the Creality Scan homepage. The discovery tab has links to items scanned by other Creality users.

The Pika must be tethered by cable or Wi-Fi. Though the Pika does have an onboard 8-core 2.0 GHz CPU, it passes along a big chunk of computer processing to whatever it’s connected to. My iPhone 15 has just enough oomph to power the scanner, so you may have an even better experience with a newer device. Either way, using a wireless connection is slower, and using it with hardware near the minimum requirements can be frustrating.

My old laptop, with only 8GB of RAM, did not work, despite being enough to run previous scanners. Thankfully, my admittedly low-end gaming laptop, with 16GB of RAM, was good enough to run the scanner quite well. The software installed on the computer is used for both scanning and processing.

Creality Scan can export scans as STL, PLY, OBJ, or ASC files. These files can be tidied up in other modeling software or uploaded directly to your 3D printer’s slicer.

Blue Laser Line 3D Scanning with the Creality Pika

The Creality Pika uses blue laser line scanning for detailed geometry capture, with seven parallel laser lines. The provided manual turntable works well when plastered with a bunch of the included marker dots. Unfortunately, it has a few millimeters of play in the center bearing, which can lead to a rough surface texture if not careful.

The photo above shows the raw scan of a copy of Michelangelo’s David. I did get much better scans later, but even this one is easily made usable in the software. The first step is fusing the model, which allows you to remove the marker dots and noise from the scan.

After fusing, the model is much smoother. There are still some unattached pieces and holes, and the bottom of the model is not flat. The lasso tool can select and remove the unattached pieces, and a clipping plane can be generated by choosing markers surrounding the scan. The plane can then be raised or lowered to give you the best base of the model.

The next step is mesh processing of the model. In this step, you can further smooth the model, simplify it, and fill small holes shown in yellow. Don’t select “make watertight” if you have a large hole (like the bottom of a model), as it will cover the holes by ballooning out a good bit. After running the mesh processing, you will have another opportunity to simplify, smooth, and fill holes.

Use Plane type hole filling for large flat surfaces.

The final model: filled, smoothed, simplified, and ready to export for printing.

This bust of David came with an early Creality scanner, so I’ve been using it as a test model for some time now. This may be the best scan I’ve gotten of it. The main reason is that the Creality Pika is small and lightweight, and tracks well enough to scan the underside of David’s hair and chin for the most part. The software’s hole filling and smoothing did the rest, with phenomenal results.

The above image on the right was printed on the Prusa Core One L with Inland Bone White PLA. The model looks nearly perfect.

Since the Pika did so well with David, I decided to try a smaller model. This little guy (below) came with my kid’s Fisher-Price castle. He’s only 62 mm tall and was just too small to paint for 3D printing. He was also printed in Inland bone white on the Prusa Core One L.

Both the print and scan are nicely detailed.

I swiped my husband’s vintage Saint Louis University Billiken bobblehead for more tests. I had to put some sticky tack on his head to keep it steady on the turntable. Creality Scan did a terrific job smoothing out the wrinkles, and the model is perfect. I used the clipping plane to remove the logo of an old wireless company that provided the game day freebie. I gave it a quick coloring job in PrusaSlicer, but skipped doing the face.

The model was printed on the Prusa XL using Anycubic turquoise and orange PLA, with Creality white and black PLA.

NIR 3D Scanning with the Creality Pika

I spent a ton of time putting random dots on the included turntable, which made Blue light scanning a breeze. NIR 3D scanning doesn’t use them. Scanning a person seems to work well until you get hair involved. Then it gets dodgy.

I ran two good scans using NIR. This time I borrowed my husband to operate the scanner, since scanning yourself is a bit more difficult than taking a selfie. I stitched together two scans of my foot, which I’ll use later to size some TPU shoes. I was able to further clean up the scan in Nomad Sculpt, since the scan wasn’t very flattering. It works quite well for sizing, however. The shoes will turn up in a future printer review.

After the less-than-stellar scan he took of my head for the Creality Sermoon S1, my husband graciously volunteered to have me scan his head for this review. Using any of the modes available, hair just seems to flummox the scanner. Fortunately, my husband has less hair than I do, so the scan did complete, and no, I’m not going to 3D print it. 3D scans are quite brutal, but if he ever wants a custom driver for his Death Racer, we’re covered.

Bottom Line

The Creality Pika is a small and light, yet totally capable scanner. It needs a good mobile phone or fairly decent laptop to drive it. The software backing up the hardware is easy to use and really does an excellent job cleaning up the rough areas of your scans. Currently, it is available at a comparatively bargain-basement pre-order price of $699.

If you want a scanner with a little more horsepower, check out the Creality Sermoon S1, which retails for $2,069. Creality also makes the Sermoon P1, which can run completely untethered and retails for $3,299.

xTool says its new X1 laser will be the last one you’ll ever need. The machine is modular, allowing users to add every style of laser xTool makes to the system: CO2, Diode, UV, Fiber, and MOPA. It will also be xTool’s first flying-galvo unit, combining the large size of a gantry system with the speed of a galvo.

And if that isn’t interesting enough, it's also a dual-head system, meaning the galvo will sit side by side with a CO2 laser. The unit will be able to pick and choose which head to deploy for the job – both if needed.

The announcement was made at The Next Level Maker Conference in Grapevine, TX. The event is a combination of maker retreat and expo, with a wide variety of classes and motivational talks by experts who have turned maker hobbies into successful businesses.

Disclaimer: xTool provided travel accommodations for this trip. Coverage remains editorially independent.

Previous “all in one” machines have used swappable toolheads, but these have been limited to various powers of diode and IR lasers. The X1 will use a swappable backpack system to provide the different laser frequencies routed to the galvo toolhead. This means the galvo can be a wood-burning diode, a crystal engraving UV, or a metal etching MOPA.

The machine’s default build will be a powerful 55w CO2 laser paired with a 20w diode for the galvo head. No price was mentioned at the reveal, so we’ll have to wait until closer to the laser’s October launch date to learn more.

A representative from xTool said the company wanted to embrace all forms of making, and be more than “just” a laser manufacturer. To that end, they announced an upcoming embroidery machine, the SE1. The machine, capable of both normal stitching and single-color embroidery, is presented as an entry point to embroidery for those already within the xTool ecosystem. The machine can be paired with the O1 Omni to paint the threads with DTG color.

This may seem to be an overly complex way to achieve colorful stitching, until you consider that full-color embroidery is accomplished with multi-needle machines costing thousands of dollars. They are also insanely complex and require high levels of skill to manage and maintain, whereas a single-color embroidery machine can be purchased for way less and operated by a beginner.

The SE1 will also use the xTool design suite, which makes transferring designs between the sewing machine and UV printer fairly straightforward. During the demo, a piece of fabric was stitched on the SE1, removed from the hoop, then placed inside the UV printer to add color. It was finished with a heat press to set the DT ink.

xTool wasn’t the only company presenting at the show. The vendor hall was full of makers turned small business owners, something that xTool actively encourages with its products and ecosystem.

Makerflo

Marc Pendergraft and John Modi started selling laser-cut products right out of college, and now own Makerflo, a wholesaler that provides “the kind of materials we wish we had.” They sell premium laser-ready merchandise that comes with upscale gift packaging. Their booth also has several new items seeking feedback from shoppers. I was impressed with a coaster that consisted of absorbent stone with a laser-ready metal disc embedded in the center.

Marc and John also led several popular breakout sessions on running a successful laser business.

Smokey Hill Designs

Angela Cruise, owner of Smokey Hill Designs, brought pallets full of high-quality plywood, acrylic, leatherette, and other sparkly laser substrates. Most were custom printed in eye-catching designs using a diode-safe material. Her goal is to use premium materials, like natural wood and pre-finished acrylics, that require less effort to turn into amazing, high-value products. Nearly everything she sells is manufactured in-house at her company’s North Carolina shop and is held to strict quality standards for use in lasers.

One of the unique materials they had for sale was Freshy Sheets, a thick absorbent material with a colorful printed surface, designed to hold essential oil and act as an air freshener. Naturally, the sheets are designed to be cut in shapes and encased in laser-cut designs.

BurnForge Software

Aaron Pratt created BurnForge, a subscription-based business tracking system for crafters. The app lets makers track customer orders every step of the way so you stop “ruining expensive blanks.” The program helps you remember machine settings and tracks your inventory and orders. He’s offering a 30-day free trial with the code NEXTLEVEL30 for a limited time.

Brothers Elias and Isaiah Grey designed Maker Studio, a suite of apps that create custom maps you can reproduce with a laser cutter, CNC, or 3d printer. The maps come in either a layered style that looks great when laser cut and stacked, or 3D terrain relief maps that can be 3D printed or CNC carved. Their product lets makers easily turn real locations into design files without needing CAD skills.

Maker Studio is a subscription service that will soon include a box maker, a fit sheet for help with packaging, and a tumbler art maker. You can sign up for a 14-day free trial to test out the program before you commit.

Bondtech, the inventor of the INDX toolchanger system used to create the highly anticipated Prusa CORE One+ INDX, admitted to a significant mistake. The nozzles, which are nitrocarburized steel, do not meet industry standards for “hardened steel” as advertised.

Prusa Research has pumped the brakes on the INDX project, and has delayed shipping INDX conversion kits until mid-August. They issued a statement on Reddit:

“Bondtech has recently confirmed that the nozzles currently supplied with the INDX system are surface-hardened rather than fully hardened as originally planned, and has not yet finalized the compensation plan for affected customers. We believe it is better to wait until both we and you have clearer information, rather than ship the kits while this important question remains unresolved.”

r/prusa3D

The statement was also emailed directly to everyone with an active INDX order in the system. The company said this delay will also give customers a chance to cancel their orders if they wish. As an olive branch, Prusa Research INDX conversion kits will included extra hardware free of charge. The statement didn’t say what the gift would be, but that specifics would be shared before shipping.

Prusa engineers immediately began testing the INDX nozzles and determined that little wear could be seen after running five kilograms of carbon fiber PETG through the nozzles. However, after just 100g of super-abrasive Ultraglow filament, the protective coating began to fail.

Nitrocarburized steel is tougher than the standard brass nozzles that come with a stock Prusa CORE One+, but not as durable as hardened steel. The real problem is not that they went with a lesser nozzle, but that they kept the “hardened steel” wording in promotional materials. If Bondtech said from the beginning (or before customers locked in their pre-orders) that the INDX shipped with ordinary steel nozzles, no one would have blinked.

Information on the nozzle quality began to surface after a Reddit user posted a support email from Bondtech founder, Martin Bondeus. The email stated that “during production, we encountered manufacturing challenges that prevented us from machining that material reliably – the cutting tools simply did not withstand the process. Rather than releasing a product with inconsistent quality, we decided to supply the nitrocarburized version for the time being.”

These nozzles are not of poor quality, but they fall short of the standards set for hardened steel. According to a statement by Bondtech, the Founders Edition shipped with nitrocarburized steel, which is steel treated to obtain a hard shell. They’ve batch tested the nozzles and found them to be around 30-32 on the Hardness Rockwell C scale (HRC). For comparison, true hardened steel lands at 55-60 while an everyday brass nozzle comes in under 10 HRC.

For most users, and most materials, these mid-tier steel nozzles work exceptionally well and will last for an extremely long time. But once you start to feed your INDX abrasive filaments like glass-fiber, carbon-fiber, glow in the dark and metal filled filaments, things get dicey. The treated steel nozzles will last longer than brass, but Bondtech said they will experience “accelerated wear” when printing abrasives.

Bondtech has stated on its website that a “concrete solution” to the problem is not ready and that manufacturing truly hardened INDX nozzles could take months. They are also not offering any form of compensation before knowing the cost of the replacements. They are requesting that customers hold off on returning the kits and simply enjoy using non-abrasive materials until a solution is found.

The INDX takes a bespoke induction heated nozzle that has no off the shelf replacement at this time.

The news has hit the Founders Edition buyers quite hard, as many have already found difficulty with the kits they so eagerly purchased months ago. Some assembly problems can be expected with such a product, as they are being mounted on CORE One printers already in service. The INDX is a separate upgrade kit, and it requires stripping down a CORE One, removing the Nextruder and replacing it with the INDX carriage, then mounting a rack to hold the eight tool heads.

One “founder” was so upset he vibe coded an entire website in protest: Nozzlegate.com. The website outlines what the perceived problems are with Bondtech, and what consumers can do about it. We contacted the website owner, who asked to go by his handle “Daddie0.”

He told me that, like others who purchased Founder Edition kits, he’s disappointed in the quality of the product. He said his INDX was suffering from multiple mid-print crashes and layer shifts, and after two weeks of troubleshooting, it was finally fixed with a firmware update from Prusa. “Then nozzlegate hits. My EU right-given two-week return window ends a day after the news breaks.”

Realizing that his window for a standard, hassle-free return had closed on a machine he felt was a lemon, he shifted strategies. He began digging into Bondtech’s official documentation to see what recourse he had for a defective product.

What he found sparked a new battle. Disagreeing with Bondtech’s listed 90-day warranty policy, which he claims misleads consumers by failing to mention Sweden's mandatory multi-year consumer protections, he channeled his frustration into the NozzleGate website.

The INDX kit is a collaboration between Prusa Research and Bondtech, with the first wave of Founders Edition kits a limited edition run going to early adopters.

Tom’s Hardware received a Founders Edition INDX kit, which we installed on a Prusa CORE One we previously reviewed. Though the build took over the kitchen table for an entire weekend, our resulting INDX is printing non-abrasive filaments with excellent quality.