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Comment by Robin_Message | Hacker News Reader

Looks great, but seems to imply that the cash register doesn't open automatically if you don't buy a printer, which rather ruins the paperless option.

It might be a good business idea to create a simple piece of hardware that does the opening if Square doesn't release one soon – hell, the hardware could just be a broken printer by the sound of it.

But very cool ephemeralisation none-the-less.

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"Open wirelessly from your iPad when paired with a receipt printer, as included in the Printing package."

It likely doesn't open the register for cash unless there is a receipt to prevent employee fraud.

It is possible they could program it to trigger the cash drawer with the printer even if going paperless, but you would still need to have the printer. Star printers have a control code to trigger the peripheral device. See this for one model: http://www.starmicronics.com/support/Mannualfolder/tsp200pm....

This seems to be an attempt to keep costs low. Most cash drawers have a simple cable connection to the printer which can send a signal down the line to open, very simple. Adding a wireless adapter to the cash drawer would certainly be more expensive.

More details on the hardware setup:

https://squareup.com/help/en-us/article/5084-using-hardware-...

Where does it imply that?

"Open wirelessly from your iPad when paired with a receipt printer, as included in the Printing package."

Also the Amazon reviews of that cash drawer say you plug it into a printer.

Those kinds of cash drawers tend to just have a RJ11-style port that the printer can plug into and trigger whenever something prints. They're very dumb devices otherwise and have no wireless capability.

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