Smartphone printer

Hi everybody !
I was wondering if someone is actually using a smartphone printer with their SFOS smartphone ?
It seems that the whole majority, if not every printer, use a Android or IOS prioritary app to print photos from the smartphone.
If someone use one of them, via an android package or any other solution, or have found a free-app printer, let me know :slight_smile:

Do you know the Seaprint app from the official store?

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Yes, I saw it, but it doesnā€™t really answer the question. I donā€™t own any printer at the moment. The question was more about a feedback.

Actually, all the printers for smartphone I can find (thermal or ink) precise clearly it uses an app. So Iā€™m quite reticent to buy one for not being able to use it.

Are you looking for feedback about specific printers? In general for the printer to work with SeaPrint (which is a phenomenal piece of software; highly recommended) the printer has to support IPP. Iā€™m sure @attah can elaborate more on that.

I use it with an HP Photosmart 6520 and it works really well, although I guess thatā€™s not a specifically smartphone printer.

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Most printers actually donā€™t need an app. They just ship one anyway, because people seem to expect it nowadays. Or they want to spam-advertise to you about first-party inkā€¦ or i honestly donā€™t know. I find it really stupid. Some few stragglers that insist on using obsolete platforms or do things from scratch despite there being a good standard though.

ā€œSmartphone printerā€ is not really an established term; but if you by that mean portable Bluetooth printers, then yes, these are problematic. IPP only works over network (and USB, though SeaPrint doesnā€™t support that) so far.

So most networked printers that arenā€™t eWaste-tier, or needlessly stubborn about old platforms (looking at you Epson) will just work. Indeed IPP is something to look for, but technically the format is separate from the communication protocol. I.e. there are printers that only support their own proprietary formats over IPP. Thankfully these are rare.

For up-to-date information on formats, see: GitHub - attah/harbour-seaprint: šŸŸšŸ–Ø Network printing for Sailfish OS
Though iā€™ve had one contradictory report on WiFi-directā€¦ :confused:

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If the printer does not support AirPrint nor IPP Everywhere, can you actually wrap its unsupported setup by a print server proxy?

Yes, anything you can finagle into CUPS/PAPPL can be shared as a well-behaved IPP printer from there.

Yes smartphone printer is not a real term, it was mainly to use an easy-to-figure expression for this kind of printer.
I was, as you said, talking about these mini-printers, connected by bluetooth, that you can find everywhere now.
And as you said also, it looks problematic.

To be more precise, Iā€™m looking for a pocket printer that I can travel with, with my (paper) notebook and my phone, nothing more.
Thatā€™s why I was looking to these small printers.
To be even more precise, a thermal printer would be event better.
At the moment, it seems to be the same problem than the inkā€™s ones, All I could find, thermal or not, are authenticating and working through Bluetoothā€¦

I maybe use the wrong keywords (English is not my native language), but even using IPP as part of the research, I canā€™t get something that could be working with Seaprintā€¦

I double-checked a bit, but found nothing new.
Canon Selphy 1200/1300/1500 should work are kind of portable. And seeing as many of the pocketable ones have very tiny printable area anyway, perhaps the Brother VC-500W comes close (no battery though).

Curiosity got the better of me and I searched aliexpress for ā€œportable printerā€ to see examples of what @kuronoyurei was describing. Man, those are goofy looking, and the descriptions are priceless: ā€œMini Printerā€ for ā€œPhotos, Mistakes, Notesā€. Donā€™t think Iā€™d feel comfortable or confident installing an app to operate one of these, if indeed, I had a phone that could ā€œappā€ at all.

But, someone called werwolv reverse-enginered the iffy sounding Chinese BLE print app: Thermal Printer BLE Protocol reverse engineering |Ā WerWolv

Itā€™s in python and uses BLEAK library, which is available on SFOS python3. And heā€™s got source on github.

Could be a project for someone wanting to use a Chinese pocket-sized thermal printer with a goofy pink cat face with Sailfish. Print all the ā€œWrong titlesā€ and ā€œWrong Questionsā€ you like on the road.

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I have a friend who is using a Canon Selphy since years and his photos are holding very well in the time.

Ok, itā€™s not the photographerā€™s nirvana but a rather good solution for ā€˜developpingā€™ some nice pictures.

Iā€™d really whish this could work on SFOS natively.
Maybe the app would work with Android App Support as it connects through wifi, IIRC.

If it connects via wifi it might work with seaprint. If you know someone who owns it you could try it.

The specs even look very promising, which i noted. So i donā€™t get why @ric9k seems so pessimistic. Maybe iā€™m missing something.

Hi, My daughter use the Canon Shelpy 1300 and it works fine with Seaprint - a lot more smooth than all apps that Canon suggests.

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Had the same curiosity, kinda impressive as i found a printer on aliexpress for 39ā‚¬, which is just a little more than the price for a canon selphy bag on amazon

It kinda makes me laugh because iā€™m completely against the use of shady chinese products but i can see why people are buying those, because they cost 3 times less a canon selphy (that surely does a better job), and people are forgiving those really shady appsā€¦

Cool, I just bought the CP1200 which seems to be identical but with a smaller display. I had missed having any photo printing. And being able to battery power it is great. Postcards on the road! Iā€™ll report back when Iā€™ve tested! Correction CP1500.

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You are right, all these proprietay ā€œstandardsā€ in every sector tend to make me a bit pessimistic.
But I didnā€™t want to sound so.
It would be wonderfull if one photo prinet would work with your app.

Yes, as soon as possible but heā€™s 500km away. As my friendā€™s friend had difficulties to install it on Android, I didnā€™t even think of trying on Sailfish.

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For printing it is not actually that bad. I was honestly surprised too!
The PWG claims 98% of new network connected printers support IPP.
They are a bit iffy on whether they also mean with sensible formats.

Iā€™m guessing they donā€™t for that to line up with my experience (Epson existing), but even so that puts the total at or above 90%.

Not bad at all! Some little bit of consumer advocacy, and that last part might just go away.

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