My first was a real cheap thing from Monoprice, but after that failed my second was an Ender 5 I got in 2020. It’s been great and I’ve had no complaints, no desire to get another FDM printer at all. Even neglecting the machine and letting it get dusty in my basement, it still fires up and prints fine every few months when I need to use it (as long as the filament is still dry).
Sucks to hear another company is going downhill (even though Creality was always a little bit sketchy).
My router (GLI.net Flint 3) makes it really easy to set up Wireguard servers on it, and from there all I needed to do was get a domain name to use. Set up Wireguard on my phone, and I can access my local network remotely without needing to pay for a VPN subscription. I still use Mullvad, but that’s for privacy not remote access.