Matt from Berg here, makers of @littleprinter.
Thanks for the link, lovely comments :) Our office Little Printer is going crazy with people testing the open API (it's at the bottom of the homepage).
So you might also like this: We're beta testing an off-the-shelf receipt printer with the same API back-end and HTML renderer in the cloud. Check it out here: http://littleprinter.com/business/
It turns out this is a solution people like - our evaluation kits are selling well - so there's also a provisional roadmap on that site. We're seeing a bunch of web startups extending their service into hardware using this device.
I'd love to hear any feedback you have!
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@genmon what's the main differences between littleprinter and the business version?
@_jacksmith little printer itself is for consumers. Made for printing messages from your friends, subscriptions... And of course it prints the face each time (and the hair grows! You have to trim the hair).
The biz version is built by our manufacturing partner, and we add the web API which is built for integration. The hardware has a better duty cycle... And there's no face so you don't need to give it a haircut. If you want a blue receipt printer, or a panel mount one, or one that buzzes, it can be customised to your use. Same API and cloud renderer. Still in beta, but we've shipped a bunch of evaluation units (used to give a paper trail for ecommerce orders for example) and learning a lot. One customer has done 12k prints to date.
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@genmon what are the limitations to using any other printer, e.g. a label printer?
@_jacksmith continuous paper rolls are better than fixed label length (at least for this version of the API), and we're focusing on one paper width at this stage. Coincidentally our manufacturer has just started offering a label printer and we used the API-enabled prototype today. The paper out sensor doesn't reliably work on it, but sticky paper is neat. If you're interested, I can see how close the manufacturer is to market with that print mech
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@genmon cool. I'm more interested to learn what the limitations are that restricted the end hardware use to your manufacturer, vs just shoving any printer on the end of the Berg Cloud and printing via this API.
I have bought a Berg Cloud, but haven't had time to play around with it yet. The possible limitations that I could think of are:
- different paper sizes need your parser thing to render at different sizes
- the firmware of the devices are different?
etc
This product has been on the market for a while, wasn't it (I think I remember reading about it some time last year)? Anyway, love the concept! Definitely gonna get one soon! :-D
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@volpav This has been on the market for a rather long time, 2 years maybe? Really though, I can't get past the price tag. $200 is just way too much for something that is such a novelty.
@jerryhjones It's a bit pricey, I agree, but imagining how much joy it's going to bring, I think I can totally save-up on morning coffee and afford it at some point :-)
We were chatting about this with @nchirls, @wp, @jrlevine, and @jlax a few days ago on an upcoming episode of Product Hunt Radio. As mentioned, I love the idea of using the Internet to bring physical things into the real world.
Looks like you can subscribe to over 160 publications. Maybe we should deliver the top hunts of the day via paper and ink. ;)
@rrhoover And you can make your own publications too! We see a lot of users making scheduled and "push" content, and leaving it in "Developer Test". That way, they can subscribe to the content, but it's invisible to the general public. One of my favourites... I went to visit friends at a large tech company, and they were using Little Printer to print the lunch canteen menu every day.
Developer docs here: http://remote.bergcloud.com/deve...
@ZackShapiro That was exactly what I thought of when I looked at the site. Not so sure about the price for the value, but nice concept.
Someone years ago did a dedicated printer for grandparents so you could send them emails and pictures that would just be printed out and they wouldn't need to use a computer to get them. I sorta wish my in-laws had that so I didn't have to do emergency tech support over the phone every time they get a massive virus infection.
@ZackShapiro You know, in thinking, the book review side of the biz could actually use this. The reviews are typically only 200 words, and someone could subscribe to just the genres they wanted. Print out the review, walk into a bookstore to buy (for those that still do that sort of thing. My guess is the folks buying an internet connected printer probably would just order online.)
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I think the subscription aspect is phenomenal and my mind immediately went to thinking about what life would be like if all my friends also had one. It would be really awesome. Pictures, random blurbs, insults - sort of like real-world snapchat. There's a certain something to the things you send to others being physically created :)
Love it and would LOVE to have one at home, but the price puts it a bit out of range. $99 would be almost no-brainer, $149 debatable, but $199 is too much for even asking for one as a gift.
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@ThatMattGardner Absolutely agreed. When I first found the Little Printer, the $200 price point scared me away. $100 is the threshold where people can truly appreciate this, I think.
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