Search code examples
printingbluetoothlabelthermal-printerweb-bluetooth

Finding printers that work with Web Bluetooth


I would like to print to thermal receipt and label printers through the web (PWA) on Android devices.

In this page you can see some example code: https://github.com/WebBluetoothCG/demos/blob/gh-pages/bluetooth-printer/index.html

Is it possible to print to "any" bluetooth enabled thermal printer or is there some process to determine which bluetooth receipt and label printers are compatible.

My worry is that some printers will only work with provided sdk's that are only written for java/objective-c/swift.


Solution

  • Unfortunately from what I have seen it takes a bit of investigation into an individual model of thermal printer to figure out whether it supports Bluetooth LE (as opposed to Bluetooth Classic) and to learn what dialect of printer control language it speaks (ESC/POS, ZPL, etc.). I recommend asking the manufacturer for detailed documentation (in case you have to build your own library) and letting them know that you are looking for something you can interface with using Web Bluetooth. If enough customers ask for it maybe they'll start advertising compatibility and even produce SDKs.