Cricut Explore Air 2 - A DIY Cutting Machine for all Crafts, Create Customized Cards, Home Decor & More, Bluetooth Connectivity, Compatible with iOS, Android, Windows & Mac, Mint

The Cricut Explorer Air 2 is an excellent piece of hardware for the money. The extra speed of the Air 2 vs the original Explorer doesnt seem to come with a compromise to the quality of the cut. The machines biggest flaw Ive run into is the software. When you are still new to the Cricut or new to crafting in general the Cricut seems like a dream come true. Once youve gotten very skilled with using the machine the software is a hurdle. Design Space is a joke. Because they didnt want to invest in software instead of the web control site they built instead, even with 16GB of DDR4 memory the design space software hits the browsers RAM limit and crashes all the time, losing all your work. It does not have an auto-save feature to help with this either. Uploading: Design space makes importing images a chore, being over simplified there are not enough tools and options to completely process a single image into different pieces for layers. Also if you dont do it all during upload, getting it done within design space will add on 3x the effort to just get a clean image you can work with. If you have a graphic that will need to be disassembled into pieces for assembly in design space, you have to upload the image multiple times and manually pull out all the details from each piece, saving them as separate uploads and then inserting them into a single project. Design Space: -Once youve gotten past the upload issues, youre in a design space window ready to create. Design space loves to eat RAM. So much so that if your design is complex, the browser will crash or lock up. If these two things dont happen, great. Lucky you. -Depending on the browser youre using the software will scale images differently on the output getting cut on the mat. So even though youve made super precise designs that all have to fit together just so...your cut is going to be in a different place on the mat that you chose, or the design is not to scale making it useless. Since there is no compensation for this in Design Space, you end up doing a lot of costly trial and error to adjust for the difference in scale. Chrome works best, IE is the worst, Safari isnt much better. -YOU CANNOT EXPORT ANYTHING. NOTHING. Everything you design belongs to Cricut and is locked into Design Space. If you want to design something in Design Space, then export that for sending to say, a t-shirt shop because you initially were going to make everyones shirts yourself, but found that it would be too large a job or inefficient on costs...too bad. Youre going to do it on the Cricut, or youre not going to do it with Cricut at all. -There are too few tools for creating free form shapes. I have been trying and trying to use whats there to make a simple shape for a vinyl side stripe for my car.. forget it. The shapes are too generic, and unlocking the L and W dimensions only lets you drag a shape out in ways that wont allow you to change an angle of a curve to make a custom shape..you can work around it with a lot, a LOT of patience and time but will have to settle for simple shapes if you dont have a pre-made vector graphic to upload. Cutting Mats: The cutting mats are really cool the way the grid more or less matches with the grid on the screen in Design Space. That said, they lose their sticky very fast for the price tag. If youre using these mats, youd better keep that clear plastic shipping cover they all come with and stick it back on after every use. I have one mat that I kept the clear sheet on it and one that I did not...the difference is night and day. Ive watched videos on how to restore the tackiness of the surface of the mat but it hasnt returned to its original tack, causing anything with a curl to peel up constantly. (like vynil from a roll..a staple of this machines worth). Youre going to need two mats minimum, one standard stick, and one light stick. (Green mat, and light blue mat). Card stock will come apart trying to use a standard stick mat, but peels off excellent on the light stick mat. Vynil on the other hand usually has a curl and needs the standard stick. Overall: This machine is still great, but the longer I use it the more I wish I had bought something that allows you to create things that dont have a Cricut logo on them. This machine is entirely focused on getting you into the Cricut ecosystem, having you subscribe to Cricut Access, and pushing you into buying Cricut accessories. I have not bought any cartridges, they seem like a throwback to the older machines, pre-Explorer. The cartridges seem like a waste of money, you get some of what youll actually like and use...and the rest, like an album CD from a singles artist, is junk youll likely not ever use. Everything thats in the cartridges are available al-la-carte in Design Space allowing you to buy them based on your project need individually..although the prices are stupid expensive for what they are generally. $5.00 for a single font choice. $10 for a project component. If youre not a designer, if youre not THAT serious about crafting and eating from Cricuts hand for content is fine for you, the Cricut is going to be amazing. If you are more skilled than beginner or have become skilled while using the Cricut and are getting more and more advanced, the Cricut begins to lose its luster. Ive spent hours and hours daily on this device with the Design Space software. Ive gone through learning from dozens of hours worth of online tutorials and youtube how-tos.. Ive bought hundreds in materials and have dozens of active projects, I am an avid user. Take that for what its worth, Ive beat this thing up and heres what I have found. Hopefully this helps someone else before they buy.

This made life crafting so much easier love it!!!!

UPDATE: Following up on the below-mentioned, I will continue to give this item a substandard rating. After school, I went to Walmart and bought the exact same item. As soon as I made it home, I opened the box and started to pull the pieces out. The first thing that I noticed was that there were more items in the box (unlike the first package). Secondly, the Cricut was actually wrapped in packaging and safety material. This instantly made me think that the previous owner returned the item (even after they registered it) and didnt even have the decency to return all of the original materials. Additionally, Amazon sold me a product that was marked as New but was definitely not. I will be more thorough about my new purchase from Amazon. Now, as for the machine, once I pulled it out of the packaging and fired it up, it instantly worked the way it was supposed to. It paired to my iPad instantly (where I couldnt even get to that step with the first one). My iPad even made the necessary updates. Overall, Ill give the new machine a 4-star rating, but I will give Amazon a Zero. You fooled me once. ORIGINAL: I purchased this item in September 2022 for a future school project. Today, the 10th of March 2023, I opened the package to use for my project. Upon setup, I noticed that the power button had a continuous red light. The white light, by the cutter blade, was also on. After much research and using online troubleshooting, I called tech support for Circut. I walked through the process of troubleshooting with the technician. He also inquired about what my email address was that I used to register this item. I informed him that I did not register the item (because I just opened it up today). However, I provided him with numerous email addresses that I use for private and work-related business. He then inquired when I purchased the item. After finding the exact order information on my Amazon account, he informed me that the item was registered WAY before I purchased the item. Now, since the item is not registered to me, and my 30-day return policy has passed, I am stuck with a large paperweight. I am sure the product works great. However, at this time I will warn any future buyers to register it immediately or to try another item.

this machine works very well

I’m so excited to use this I’m just in love with it already and I haven’t even used it yet

Mixed feelings. I have always wanted one, so when it was on sale for only 170 I jumped on it. EDIT: You HAVE TO PAY for the Cricut service if you want any functional writing fonts. Otherwise, the Cricut will draw the letters as if cutting them out (so the letters will be hollow). See final pic. Ive had it about a week, and while I like it when it works, Im having some issues with it. *Personally, Im worried I got a lemon because it makes a scraping sound in the gears or something when its working... based on another video I saw online, its not supposed to sound like that, at least not after only a day of use. So, Im going to reach out to the manufacturer and double check with them. Tips, complaints, etc: --You MUST have transfer paper to get your designs off their base sheet and aligned perfectly onto the end result (i.e, a complex sticker with empty space in some spots will not be lined up when you try to put it by hand onto a mug). This is a bit angering for me, because transfer paper is just another chunk of plastic that will go in the trash. The Cricut already has so much waste without this (more on that later), I just hate that I have to buy even MORE product (since I bought the tools separately) just to throw even more away. --There is no consistency between material type when it comes to the dial. I used Cricuts premium vinyl for the stickers in my attached photos, and set it to vinyl on the dial, but I could barely tell it had cut it at all and when I tried to pull the designs off, they didnt budge. I figured, Well, shoot, I must have to go under custom. I did so, picking their premium vinyl from the drop-down in the program. I ran it back in--which I did before with regular old cheap sticker paper to re-cut stickers and it worked just fine--and this time it was off by about 2mm. So it totally messed up my letters. Turns out it HAD cut through the first time, because each of those little pieces were coming off as I tried to remove the letters. So frustrating on all accounts. --MATERIAL IS WASTED. You can do your best to fill the complete space with the Design Space program, but Design Space basically tells you, No, you need a second piece of material, Im not going to cut that close to the edge. If you have a 12x12 sticker sheet, and you take the time to cram all your letters and images into that space nice and tightly, AND use the attach feature so the program wont auto-arrange, it doesnt matter, because it will tell you thats too big, or it will split everything and expect you to use two mats and two sticker sheets, with 2/3 of each sheet blank. The MOST WASTE is when you use the print and cut feature. Look into it: you cant make anything actually 8.5x11. The max is like 9.25x6.25, because the program needs to draw a black line around the border of your project so the Cricut has a reference point for cutting. Thats fine, but... like, why cant Cricut just bump out the lines to 9x10? Thats PLENTY of margin. Instead, you get to waste nearly a full 2 frame of sticker paper. Turns out this has been a complaint for years, and Cricut just is not going to change it. --It does not come with a scoring tool. Frankly, I didnt even know this was an option, but if you want to get this specifically to make greeting cards, congrats, you gotta buy it separately. --People on Etsy make pen adapters so you can use markers you already have instead of wastefully buying another 20 that are specific to Cricut. Ive just ordered some, because I have literally 100 markers. So, keep that in mind before you go out and buy the Cricut marker set. --The mat it comes with is the light grip. Holy SMOKES I would HATE to have gotten the standard grip! This thing is like GLUE, and good luck lining everything up along the ruler cause if you get it crooked you will ruin a whole sheet of material getting it off to realign it. Im not joking, this happened while I was calibrating the machine. The hack to flip it over and curl the mat off the material so the mat curls instead works, but only until the last strip of material left on the mat, then that end curls. *Keep the clear sheet for the mat so you can cover it after use and reduce dust*. --You do NOT need to pay for the access in Cricut Design Space to get cute fonts. Just download free fonts to your computer and restart Cricut, and you can use the fonts that are on your system. HOWEVER.... It seems to be a bit finicky when cutting because the machine cuts each individual letter instead of seeing it as a single image to be cut, so even if you use a cursive font, it WILL mess it up while cutting. I guess thats intentional so you have to pay 10 bucks a month or 5 bucks per font to have a good cut. All in all, Ill keep it, but Im still disappointed in it.

I have had this machine for almost a year now, and I confidently say, THIS MACHINE SUCKS IT REALLY IS TERRIBLE DO NOT BUY IT I dont understand how they have such a high rating. Since I mostly wanted it for sticker cutting purposes here are the reasons from that perspective why this is an awful machine. First off old problems: 1. The machine never calibrates well. Even if you calibrate it, everything cuts nicely for the first few (like 1) pages only. Progressively, it gets worse and worse and you have to recalibrate it AGAIN and AGAIN wasting paper. Also, if you are cutting stickers, as you go farther down the page, the Cricut cuts it more and more off. 2. The print and cut space is tiny, at only 6.75 inches x 9.25 inches. That means if you want to print stickers you can only fit it within that space, otherwise they wont cut. Thats a pretty big area of wasted real estate, especially since sticker paper can get extremely expensive. 3. In my time of owning this dreadful machine, Cricut has done a software update that completely DESTROYED its print and cut capabilities. The designs would be consistently cut off and you couldnt fix it with calibration. Online Ive seen lots of people who have small businesses depending on these machines get completely blindsided by this update and waste hours trying to get their Cricuts to work. When I emailed the company asking them how to fix this, their response was basically, We know this problem exists. We are trying our best to fix it quickly. NOT ONLY DID THEY NOT OFFER A SOLUTION (ex. downgrading to a previous version of the software) THEY ALSO DID NOT GIVE A TIMEFRAME OF WHEN THE ISSUE WOULD BE FIXED. At the price you are paying for these machines you would expect much more consistent performance capabilities. Even worse, they had zero transparency regarding this issue and basically only confirmed it existed if you contacted them about it. 3. The software - Cricut Design Space - you use to format images for cutting SUCKS. IT IS TERRIBLE. First off, theyll randomly update it and itll just stop working until you find that one stupid setting they changed and revert it back to the original. Furthermore the blade can only cut at one pressure. This means for stickers, if you want to have sticker sheets youd have leap through so many hoops. This is because sticker sheets need two blade pressures - a lighter one for cutting out the stickers that dont go all the way through the paper and a heavier one for cutting out the rectangle that the stickers sit on that goes all the way through the paper. ATROCIOUS. New problem - A BIG ONE: 1. Cricut has announced that they will be limiting the upload frequency to Cricut Design Space to 20 a MONTH in March of 2021. THIS IS APPALLING!! Basically in order to get your Cricut to cut the design you want, you have to upload that design to Cricut Design Space. Fine tuning designs and cutlines take A LOT OF TRIAL AND ERROR. ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE WORKING ON 3D PAPER MODELS. STICKERS TO A DEGREE AS WELL. 20 uploads is nothing. It will get used up instantly. Its funny as Cricut has said before Creative freedom should be free. :)))) Phew~ If youve made it this far, congrats. Honestly Cricut works fine when you get it to work, but when it only works 1% of the time and 99% of the time its mind numbingly, hair tearingly terrible, it’s NOT WORTH IT. This has been the worst purchase of my life. I did not research enough before getting this useless machine. Thanks to this awful experience, I have learned to research a lot more in depth whenever I have to make a bigger purchase. Anyways, I cant wait to sell this horrendous machine and invest in a better cutting machine. Its going to be rough doing that since I predict a lot of people will be looking forward to selling their vile Cricuts. Ive heard Silhouettes address basically every single problem Ive listed here. Before, I kind of shied away from the Silhouette Cameo as it was more expensive. But the frustrating experience Cricut provides proves its not worth it to save a couple bucks for your sanity. In terms of sticker cutting, Ive literally never seen any of the hundreds of artists I follow try to convince their followers to switch to Cricut, or that the Cricut is the superior cutting machine. Its always them trying to convince people that the Silhouette is better. And at this point, as a Cricut owner with firsthand experience of how terrible this machine is, Im inclined to believe.

I bought the Cricut explorer 2 air. first of all i called into the company to ask questions before i purchased the machine. i did alot of reserch online also watching videos etc...then i felt good about spending 300 dollars on all of it, and vinyls, cutting matts, cutters etc..when i got the machine in the mail and set eventually set it up. The first thin you do is create an online cricut account, put in your serial number and go to design space.com. The problem i started having is you cant download the program onto your desktop pc so in order to use the machine you have to be connected to the internet No one said anything about this: The 2nd thing is in order to use the online service you have to pay 10.00 per month No one said anything about this. So if i dont use it for 2-3 months i still have to pay right? There is some hidden things they dont tell you about before you buy this..i dont think its right to have to pay 120.00 a year to use this machine that i already purchased. if i had know any of this i would have never bought this. Im sending it all back for a refund. Beware: Update: i also purchased cutters and cutting mats that i never used, so i sent them back for a refund its been almost a month and no refund yet. im just one of the dissatisfied customers they have or had.

Ive always wanted a cricut machine and I finally have one. It came when expected and was very easy to set up. All instructions are within the box. Very happy with my purchase.

Im so excited to use it. The only thing wrong with it was the mat that came with it. It’s super dirty felt like it was used.