HeyGears has unveiled the G1X, a desktop machine the company is billing as the world's first to combine full-color 3D printing, raised 3D texture printing, and 2D UV flatbed printing into a single system. It's an unusual pitch in a hobbyist market that has spent the last few years chasing faster FDM speeds and cheaper resin setups: instead of doing one thing well, the G1X is positioned as a print shop in a box, aimed at makers, small studios, and product designers who currently need three separate machines — and three separate workflows — to cover color models, textured surfaces, and flat UV-printed graphics.
The G1X is the flagship of HeyGears' new G1 series, which also includes a lower-cost G1 Starter Pack. Both are currently in a VIP waitlist phase ahead of a planned Kickstarter launch in July 2026, an increasingly common way for hardware makers to pre-validate demand and lock in early buyers before committing to full-scale manufacturing.
What's Actually Inside the G1X
The headline feature is color depth. The G1X flagship uses an Epson i3200 industrial inkjet printhead paired with an 8-channel ink system — CMYK, double white, a water-soluble support ink, and a transparent ink — which HeyGears says produces more than 10 million distinct colors at resolutions up to 1,440 x 2,400 DPI. That's a meaningfully more sophisticated ink stack than the single- or dual-channel setups found on most consumer color-capable printers, and it's the kind of hardware more commonly associated with commercial UV flatbed presses than desktop 3D printers.
The entry-level G1 Starter trades down to an F1080 printhead with a 6-channel ink system, presumably sacrificing some color range and print speed for a lower price point — HeyGears hasn't published detailed specs comparing the two printheads beyond the channel count, so exactly how much fidelity buyers give up at the Starter tier isn't yet clear. On the G1X side, HeyGears lists the i3200 printhead as packing 3,200 high-density nozzles firing 3.9-picoliter droplets, with a printed layer thickness of 10 to 20 microns.
The "3-in-1" claim comes from three distinct print modes running on the same hardware. Full-color 3D printing lays down standard three-dimensional geometry with the inkjet system applying color directly during the build, avoiding the separate painting or dyeing step that color-hungry makers currently have to do by hand or outsource. 3D texture printing builds up raised surface relief — HeyGears specifies texture heights up to 5mm and says the system can achieve deep relief up to 150mm, which would allow for genuinely sculptural raised details rather than the subtle bump-mapping most desktop printers are limited to. The third mode is 2D UV flatbed printing, which prints full-color graphics directly onto flat objects and materials rather than building a 3D shape at all — the kind of job that today typically requires sending work out to a UV flatbed print shop.
HeyGears says the G1X supports more than 400 materials and that its UV print speed runs up to three times faster than comparable desktop UV printers — specifically, the company's own footnoted comparison is against desktop UV printers equipped with a single F1080 (XP600) printhead, the same printhead used in its own entry-level G1 Starter Pack. HeyGears also bundles a HeyVerse AI design tool and a Blueprint Studio print-prep application, plus a library of more than 500 curated assets, and the system uses line-scan imaging for auto-calibration.
Pricing and Timeline
HeyGears is running a VIP pre-reservation program rather than an immediate sale. A $50 refundable deposit locks in VIP pricing for either machine ahead of the Kickstarter. Under that VIP pricing, the G1X Full-3D Pack is listed at $3,299, against a stated future MSRP of $5,499 once the VIP window closes. The G1 Starter Pack is priced at $1,699 VIP, with a future MSRP of $2,699. That's roughly a 40 percent discount for early reservers on both configurations, a common Kickstarter-adjacent structure that rewards buyers willing to commit before the campaign — and before independent hands-on reviews — exist. There's also a middle tier: a G1X Starter Pack at $2,999 VIP ($4,999 MSRP) that includes the same i3200 printhead and 8-channel ink system for UV and 2D printing, but skips the 3D resin and cleaning-fluid refill kit and resin station that unlock full-color 3D printing — those only ship with the pricier Full-3D Pack. Reservers who go on to back the Kickstarter get their $50 deposit refunded plus a further $300 price-difference refund within 14 days of the campaign's close, and early reservers also receive a complimentary 300ml bottle of white UV ink, valued at $49.
3DPrint.com's report, published June 29, 2026, confirms the machine is currently in VIP waitlist reservation mode ahead of the Kickstarter launch, meaning no independent unit has shipped or been reviewed yet. Everything currently known about the G1X's real-world print quality, reliability, and speed comes from HeyGears' own specifications.
What It Means for Makers
The G1X's real target isn't the FDM hobbyist crowd chasing faster PLA prints — it's the maker or small studio currently paying for outsourced color 3D printing, hand-painting models, or sending flat parts to a UV print shop for branding and graphics. If the specs hold up, consolidating those three workflows into one $3,299 desktop unit would undercut the cost of buying (or outsourcing to) separate machines for each job, and the water-soluble support ink suggests HeyGears has thought through post-processing on complex color geometry rather than just bolting an inkjet head onto a standard printer.
That said, makers should treat the VIP pricing and specs with the caution warranted by any pre-Kickstarter hardware announcement. There's no independent review, no confirmed shipping date beyond "Kickstarter launch in July 2026," and no data yet on how the Epson i3200 printhead holds up to sustained 3D-printing duty cycles versus its native 2D printing use case, or how consumable ink costs compare to the cost of resin or filament for equivalent color output. The $50 deposit is refundable, which lowers the risk of reserving a spot, but backing the eventual Kickstarter campaign itself will carry the usual crowdfunding risk — no guaranteed delivery date, no guarantee the final shipping unit matches the announced specs, and no recourse beyond whatever refund policy HeyGears sets for the raise. Makers genuinely interested in the G1X's capabilities should watch for the Kickstarter page and independent hands-on coverage in July before deciding whether to buy in.
