From what I understand, you can plan your design, but you still have to send it through horizon link. So you still need a laptop or pc with a disk drive. Personally, I don't need to watch my stitches stitch out if I walk away. If I want to watch, I'll stay with the machine. I thought one of the features was that you didn't need to watch it every second. Waiting to see other details on it, but I'm staying with what I've got.