Scanner Epson perfection 3700 Photo on Mac mini M1 / MacOs Monterey

Have you tried Apple's Image Capture that is included in the operating system? Have you checked the Epson site for explicit driver support for macOS 12?. It is generally not sufficient to use drivers for Catalina (macOS 10.15.7), or Big Sur (11.6.7) for this purpose.

The paid VueScan Professional supports this scanner without any Epson or Apple software, and would provide you with vendor independence. You can try the VueScan Software before any purchase decision.

I purchased VueScan Professional in 2010 for what was then an unsupported Canon flatbed scanner. With the current version of VueScan, I can still use that scanner on macOS Monterey 12.4. I have never paid for any software update from VueScan in 12 years, and receive nothing in return from the vendor for mentioning their product here.

The current 64-bit version of VueScan will drive the ET-3700, Stylus CX3700 model scanners directly without need for Epson drivers. It also supports the Perfection 37 and Perfection 370 scanners. The latter two, due to their age, require 32-bit Epson drivers, probably a 32-bit version of VueScan, and an older version of macOS to potentially work.

Neither Epson's site, Vuescan's, nor wikipedia get hits on a Perfection 3700 Photo model.

Mr. bleary eyes. Same drill for Epson.

If there is any planned obsolescence, it begins with HP who is solely responsible for driver and product continuance.