7 ms·

I've not had problems with bluetooth for years. Printers on the other hand, never seem to work smoothly. How?

klodolph 4y ago
Buy better printers, or change your expectations. I haven’t had problems with printers as long as I can remember, except a problem with large spool files created by PowerPoint. I used to work as a technician running computer labs. This job extended to printer repair. I later wrote software to manage printers. Some printers are really very nice to work with and not too hard to repair. Some laser printers are built like tanks and give you glorious crisp text forever. Some inkjets produce vivid or subtle colors with fantastic durability and consistency (assuming you use decent paper). Some people have unrealistic expectations about what a cheapo inkjet can do, or unrealistic expectations about what kind of paper you can use, and some people just buy the wrong model.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
kmarc 4y ago
I bought a HP printer (scanner/fax/copier) 10ish years ago and since then I don't have printing problems. Before HP I thought the same as you :-)
heavyset_go 4y ago
Almost every printer sold in the last decade supports IPP Everywhere, which has robust support on Windows, macOS, Linux, *BSD, ChromeOS, Android, and anything that can run CUPS. It's completely driverless, too.
- kristopolous 4y ago
  And oh man does it have issues. Oftentimes you have to do SNMP. Take scanning for instance, many devices will just give you compressed JPEGs over their HTTP interface without any option for choosing otherwise Now they'll claim you can specify it a variety of ways such as picking the document type, but they'll just ignore you. I forget all the permutations but I tried them all. I've had to reverse engineer their windows program from pcap files to get the real protocol I've spent a good deal of time in cups supporting these systems. Reminds me that I'll need to convince cups to take my fixes somehow (which first requires me to convince them this is real; not as easy as you think because there's lots of hardware variance - you can't just reproduce random printer X and then I have to convince them that the XML documentation of claimed support is either incorrect or useless; then I'll have to convince them that SNMP is the way to go, then and only then, if I walk that tightrope can I put forth my solution ; gotta love the ceremony).
  - darkwater 4y ago
    > And oh man does it have issues. Oftentimes you have to do SNMP. Take scanning for instance, many devices will just give you compressed JPEGs over their HTTP interface without any option for choosing otherwise Just one data point (mine) but I have one of the cheapest HP Deskjet you can buy with scanner included, it works smoothly, no actions needed via wifi with Linux, I can set the DPI, save it as PNG or PDF, it's wonderful.
    - kristopolous 4y ago
      Brother is one of the biggest offenders here I've found. I've also found an HP with an issue as well but I haven't diagnosed it. I'm typing this from my bed on a phone so sorry I don't have the references on me What's your model?
      - baq 4y ago
        Interesting since past printer threads highlighted Brother as a reliable brand. Anecdotally I've got a ~10 year old Brother laser printer+scanner and it still works great, but needs a Brother app to print from Apple devices since it doesn't support the new standard protocol.
        kristopolous 4y ago
        Reliability and compatibility are separate dimensions. if the driverless tool and avahi tools can't find your printer then yes, you're living in hell and have dreams of a USB serial printer you can simply cat PDFs to. We'll probably get flying cars before we get another interface as reasonable as a line printer from 50 years ago
      - darkwater 4y ago
        > What's your model? HP DeskJet 2630, it's like 4 years old.
- oynqr 4y ago
  They might support it, but few actually run the validation suite for IPP Everywhere. My Epson printer ignores specified orientations and shits itself when you specify print quality. Another certified HP printer of mine does just fine.
  - heavyset_go 4y ago
    I've been using cheap Brother and HP printers exclusively because my printing needs are simple, and I've been pleasantly surprised how well supported they are on computers and phones. This might be a Bluetooth-esque tragedy of poor vendor/driver/client/server/etc implementations ruining a good thing for some users.
bjoli 4y ago
I buy stupid printers with good cups support and plug them into a printer server. It has been robust for about 7 years, and I have only had to update the raspberry pi once to a new LTS release. OTOH I am the kind of guy that only buys wired headphones.
mrweasel 4y ago
The only Bluetooth issues I’v had are weird ones. Apparently I’m to tall for Bluetooth, at least the cheap headphones I bought. Place the phone in my left hand pocket and the headphones, which have the antenna on the right can barely pickup the signal. The there’s the implementation, and I cannot figure out how they messed up this one: Concept2 have an iOS app for their rowing machines. The previous version would pair the second you asked the rowing machine to connect. The new versions three to five times slower. It’s the same bluetooth stack, why would pairing change?

Buy better printers, or change your expectations. I haven’t had problems with printers as long as I can remember, except a problem with large spool files created by PowerPoint. I used to work as a technician running computer labs. This job extended to printer repair. I later wrote software to manage printers. Some printers are really very nice to work with and not too hard to repair. Some laser printers are built like tanks and give you glorious crisp text forever. Some inkjets produce vivid or subtle colors with fantastic durability and consistency (assuming you use decent paper). Some people have unrealistic expectations about what a cheapo inkjet can do, or unrealistic expectations about what kind of paper you can use, and some people just buy the wrong model.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

kmarc 4y ago

I bought a HP printer (scanner/fax/copier) 10ish years ago and since then I don't have printing problems. Before HP I thought the same as you :-)

heavyset_go 4y ago

Almost every printer sold in the last decade supports IPP Everywhere, which has robust support on Windows, macOS, Linux, *BSD, ChromeOS, Android, and anything that can run CUPS. It's completely driverless, too.

kristopolous 4y ago
And oh man does it have issues. Oftentimes you have to do SNMP. Take scanning for instance, many devices will just give you compressed JPEGs over their HTTP interface without any option for choosing otherwise Now they'll claim you can specify it a variety of ways such as picking the document type, but they'll just ignore you. I forget all the permutations but I tried them all. I've had to reverse engineer their windows program from pcap files to get the real protocol I've spent a good deal of time in cups supporting these systems. Reminds me that I'll need to convince cups to take my fixes somehow (which first requires me to convince them this is real; not as easy as you think because there's lots of hardware variance - you can't just reproduce random printer X and then I have to convince them that the XML documentation of claimed support is either incorrect or useless; then I'll have to convince them that SNMP is the way to go, then and only then, if I walk that tightrope can I put forth my solution ; gotta love the ceremony).
- darkwater 4y ago
  > And oh man does it have issues. Oftentimes you have to do SNMP. Take scanning for instance, many devices will just give you compressed JPEGs over their HTTP interface without any option for choosing otherwise Just one data point (mine) but I have one of the cheapest HP Deskjet you can buy with scanner included, it works smoothly, no actions needed via wifi with Linux, I can set the DPI, save it as PNG or PDF, it's wonderful.
  - kristopolous 4y ago
    Brother is one of the biggest offenders here I've found. I've also found an HP with an issue as well but I haven't diagnosed it. I'm typing this from my bed on a phone so sorry I don't have the references on me What's your model?
    - baq 4y ago
      Interesting since past printer threads highlighted Brother as a reliable brand. Anecdotally I've got a ~10 year old Brother laser printer+scanner and it still works great, but needs a Brother app to print from Apple devices since it doesn't support the new standard protocol.
      - kristopolous 4y ago
        Reliability and compatibility are separate dimensions. if the driverless tool and avahi tools can't find your printer then yes, you're living in hell and have dreams of a USB serial printer you can simply cat PDFs to. We'll probably get flying cars before we get another interface as reasonable as a line printer from 50 years ago
    - darkwater 4y ago
      > What's your model? HP DeskJet 2630, it's like 4 years old.
oynqr 4y ago
They might support it, but few actually run the validation suite for IPP Everywhere. My Epson printer ignores specified orientations and shits itself when you specify print quality. Another certified HP printer of mine does just fine.
- heavyset_go 4y ago
  I've been using cheap Brother and HP printers exclusively because my printing needs are simple, and I've been pleasantly surprised how well supported they are on computers and phones. This might be a Bluetooth-esque tragedy of poor vendor/driver/client/server/etc implementations ruining a good thing for some users.

bjoli 4y ago

I buy stupid printers with good cups support and plug them into a printer server. It has been robust for about 7 years, and I have only had to update the raspberry pi once to a new LTS release. OTOH I am the kind of guy that only buys wired headphones.

mrweasel 4y ago

The only Bluetooth issues I’v had are weird ones. Apparently I’m to tall for Bluetooth, at least the cheap headphones I bought. Place the phone in my left hand pocket and the headphones, which have the antenna on the right can barely pickup the signal. The there’s the implementation, and I cannot figure out how they messed up this one: Concept2 have an iOS app for their rowing machines. The previous version would pair the second you asked the rowing machine to connect. The new versions three to five times slower. It’s the same bluetooth stack, why would pairing change?