Gadget Review: Bluetooth Receipt Printer
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To go truly mobile with Altru, we have to cut all the cables that tie us to one spot. The last wire that was tethering us to the ground was the receipt printer.
We have multiple tablets and barcode scanner recommendations. But, if I have to stand near a printer so that I can provide receipts, then our dreams of walking around the museum selling memberships, or being outside at an event selling tickets to an upcoming performance are hindered.
That’s why I’m pleased to report that there is a solution, the StarMicronics SM-T300i.
The StarMicronics SM-T300i is a mobile, 3” Bluetooth receipt printer.
It conveniently clips onto a belt or belt loop, as seen worn here by Rachel Dailey, one of our Altru account executives.
Since it is Bluetooth, it connects to any Bluetooth enabled tablet or laptop, including the Acer and Dell we recommended in a previous post. And because it has an internal rechargeable battery, there are absolutely no wires tying us down.
I’ve been looking for something like this for the last 6 months. I even tried products from multiple manufactures with 0 results; I just couldn’t get them to work in Windows 8. This almost happened with the SM-T300i as well. I could not get it to work in Windows 8. I paired it, Windows saw it but I could not actually print to it. After running into similar situations, I knew that I had to be missing something easy, and I was.
After pairing the printer, you have to go into Bluetooth Settings and add a port for the printer. Once that was done, I installed the StarMicronics driver and told it the port number and bam, it worked. I let out a resounding “YES!” and disturbed all the people around me.
You might think that if I run into a few problems getting something to work, I wouldn’t recommend it, but quite the contrary. I trust things more when I understand the “gotchas.”
So, not only was I able to get it working, the SM-T300i just so happens to cost almost half of what the other manufactures are asking and can be found on Amazon for roughly $400. They come in gray and orange but the orange one is $100+ more. I don’t need orange that much.
We have multiple tablets and barcode scanner recommendations. But, if I have to stand near a printer so that I can provide receipts, then our dreams of walking around the museum selling memberships, or being outside at an event selling tickets to an upcoming performance are hindered.
That’s why I’m pleased to report that there is a solution, the StarMicronics SM-T300i.
The StarMicronics SM-T300i is a mobile, 3” Bluetooth receipt printer.
It conveniently clips onto a belt or belt loop, as seen worn here by Rachel Dailey, one of our Altru account executives.
Since it is Bluetooth, it connects to any Bluetooth enabled tablet or laptop, including the Acer and Dell we recommended in a previous post. And because it has an internal rechargeable battery, there are absolutely no wires tying us down.
I’ve been looking for something like this for the last 6 months. I even tried products from multiple manufactures with 0 results; I just couldn’t get them to work in Windows 8. This almost happened with the SM-T300i as well. I could not get it to work in Windows 8. I paired it, Windows saw it but I could not actually print to it. After running into similar situations, I knew that I had to be missing something easy, and I was.
After pairing the printer, you have to go into Bluetooth Settings and add a port for the printer. Once that was done, I installed the StarMicronics driver and told it the port number and bam, it worked. I let out a resounding “YES!” and disturbed all the people around me.
You might think that if I run into a few problems getting something to work, I wouldn’t recommend it, but quite the contrary. I trust things more when I understand the “gotchas.”
So, not only was I able to get it working, the SM-T300i just so happens to cost almost half of what the other manufactures are asking and can be found on Amazon for roughly $400. They come in gray and orange but the orange one is $100+ more. I don’t need orange that much.
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ARCHIVED | Blackbaud Altru® Tips and Tricks
06/20/2013 11:10am EDT
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