[stevewillows]

I really regret not picking up a Little Printer when I had the chance. I've considered building a networked thermal printer, but its not quite the same.

My dream is to have a 2" impact printer (e.g. receipt printer) for to-do, grocery, etc, lists.

I really don't want to have a life of joy and pure bliss that relies on a thermal printer. I love the concept so much.

With the others, I've still got three Pebbles and I love them all equally. The two OG Pebbles needed a piece of paper between the vibrating part and the screen, but the 2HR has been perfect.

These concepts are all so great. Chumby is another I've always admired.

[asclepi]

I had a Little Printer, and I believe the article is slightly over-romanticizing the device. It was slow, not only the printing itself but there would also be a considerable delay before it would start printing as everything had to go through the cloud.

The printing paper had very uncommon dimensions and was hard to find. You could buy them from Berg, but they charged a lot for the rolls. There would also be a lot of paper waste due to the "face" that needed to be printed after every job. Cute, but no practical use.

In the end, however, it did what it advertised, and it did so with remarkably few of the hiccups that were (and are still) common for the IoT devices of the time; it was a good "version 1" for an IoT device. It's unfortunate that they never got to make a second version.

After the project was shuttered I bought an Epson TM-T20II. It prints from the LAN, it prints extremely quick, and the standard paper dimensions that it uses are easy to find on Amazon. It doesn't print a cute face after every job, though, but you can buy a buzzer add-on to make it beep after every job if you want.

[stevewillows]

well, this is very reassuring! Weird that the face would print every time -- what a waste.

I had thermal printer for a while for another purpose and loved it. It was so handy to have --- but ultimately, thermal paper isn't great for the ol' environment.

Do you still use the thermal printer for lists and stuff?

[teddyc]

Epson receipt printers have had network modules / adapters for 10+ years. Both wired and wireless.

IIRC you have to sign an NDA to get access to the documentation for the Epson ESC codes to do things like bold, inverted text, bigger fonts, print images, cut the paper, etc.

I used netcat to write bytes to a network printer 10+ years ago. It was pretty cool. You can also write to the serial port for serial printers, with the same bytes. It's very simple.

If you want an impact printer, you probably want to use the Epson TM-U220 series printers: https://epson.com/For-Work/Point-of-Sale/POS-Printers/TM-U22...

[stevewillows]

yeah, a printer like that would be pretty great -- and two color printing?! What more can anyone ask for?

These sorts of projects are always on my mind. For a while I was looking into building what is essentially a Telex / typewriter output.

Thanks for this!

[Vrondi]

If you search around on Amazon, there are several other small printers that use Bluetooth to print onto thermal receipt paper. "thermal printer" as a search brings up these mixed with the photo dedicated color ones.

[RaoulP]

I agree on the Little Printer. I didn't get one, now I'm also on the lookout for something to fill that role.

[bwoodward]

Adafruit has some kits that are probably perfect for this, if you're cool with thermal

It would also be fun to have a thermal printer camera like that one that was going around a few years ago.

[1] https://www.adafruit.com/product/1289

[2] https://learn.adafruit.com/instant-camera-using-raspberry-pi...