lionpixel

This idea really resonates. Like others have mentioned, there's a unique power to a physical artifact that a digital to-do list just can't replicate. I went down this exact rabbit hole a while back, trying to bridge the gap between my digital planning and physical, actionable "tickets." The setup part can be a bit of a pain, especially getting a printer reliably online and talking to it from different apps and services. This is the exact problem I built Printercow¹ to solve (author here!). It's a small service that lets you turn any thermal printer into a networked API endpoint with a one-line install command on a Raspberry Pi. The idea is to handle all the backend plumbing so you can focus on the fun part—triggering prints from Zapier, a script, or your own app to create a system just like the author's. Happy to answer any questions about the setup!

(¹) https://printercow.com

I am using Printercow for another project of mine where I developed a POS-system where many thousands receipts need to be printed. This was one of the motivations. AI was kind of a afterthought. :P

Thank you for the detailed feedback! I really appreciate you sharing your perspective, especially about the compliance requirements. You're right, and you're not alone - many others in the thread have expressed similar concerns about the SaaS approach. After taking some time to reflect, I've decided to pivot towards a dual-track solution:

1. A free, self-hostable version for businesses with compliance requirements or those who prefer to maintain their own infrastructure 2. A cloud version for users who want a managed solution

I'll be working on both versions over the next few weeks. :)

Valid question. Printercow is aiming for a plug-and-play scenario where you can use whatever thermal printer you want with an extensive html-like template engine.

Great choice MUNBYN printers are awesome! Recently I found that NETUM thermal printers are even cheaper for comparable performance. :)

Sorry, this should definitely work. Try clicking on your avatar -> Manage Accounts -> Security -> Delete Account. Will look into this.

I really like the proposal from black_puppydog here. Free forever self-host and a pay-per-print in case you want to have support or don't want to hassle with the infrastructure. Like Coolify is doing it.

haha :D

I like this! Thanks for the feedback!

Once it's out of alpha you can self-host this project

Speaks nothing against this - though give it some time to leave the alpha phase. Hosting is super easy using Docker and e.g. Coolify as PaaS right now.

Not fully decided on the payment yet. Thinking about going the Coolify route with self-hosted and cloud option or with pay what you use (seems more software tending to this one). Happy for any feedback!

Raspberry Pi Installation: - Open Raspberry Pi Imager - Select Raspberry Pi OS Lite (32bit) --> Lite is without desktop environment and saves some Memory on the PI :) - Start the Pi and enter: curl -fsSL https://printercow.com/pi/install.sh -o install.sh \ && chmod +x install.sh \ && sudo ./install.sh

Thanks for the feedback! Thought about this as well! If enough people are interested I'll integrate a one-click install option. :)

Totally get the resentment. However, I'm particularly excited about the benefits this could bring, especially for people like my grandma with dementia. She could say, "Print my shopping list," or "Can you write down my son's phone number?" Only thing missing for now is smarter home assistant devices as Alexa is too dumb to handle such requests. :/

Thanks so much! Elixir was on my list but decided for Fastify (Node v22), Postgres and Vue3 in the end as these are the things I am more familiar with. :) The command is on the Printercow homepage - though proper docs are coming by end of the week.

Indeed. But there are some good BPA-free alternatives on the market

When it comes to regular ink/laser printers: yes. When it comes to thermal printers, you are normally left alone with just the ESC/P protocol, plus most printers handle the commands in a different way. The way I solved this issue is to write an image buffer directly to the printer, circumventing the protocol and always ensuring that prints look the same regardless of the printer.

In case you don't want to create an account, you can just comment with your prompts and I will enter them myself. You can watch let it print on https://twitch.tv/printercow then. :)

With SWD and a Tag-Connect connector[1]. I watched someone on youtube recommend it due to the small space and low profile. You can use the VSCode NRF Connect SDK plugin (coupled with Jlink or NRF52 dev kit) to flash the device. But of course you can just use USB und copy a generated .hex file directly on the device. I use SWD because its faster to flash many boards by just pressing the pogo pins on the connector pad. Boom done. :)

[1] https://www.tag-connect.com/product/tc2030-ctx-nl-6-pin-no-l...

For $9.90 you get a Seeed Xiao NRF52840[1] board with Arduino support. In sleep mode it consumes just 1µA. In my spare time I'm building smart locks with these that last for up to 2 years with a CR123 battery. Recently I switched from Arduino to the nrf Connect SDK and a tiny nrf52832 board that cost just 4$ on AliExpress. Works like a charm.

[1] https://www.seeedstudio.com/Seeed-XIAO-BLE-nRF52840-p-5201.h...

MRM//McCann | Deep Learning Expert | ONSITE or REMOTE | FREELANCE for 6 month | Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Together with our client we're building the first ever sign language controlled interactive kiosk. We're are looking for an experienced deep learning expert with knowledge in processing temporal human keypoints and building robust ML models.

If you're available from now on for the next 6 month and are interessted in helping us realzing this challenging project then please write to us: creative_technology@mrm-mccann.de

Right now the SDK supports body pose estimation without finger joints. Does anybody know or work on a model including finger joints?

Can I ask on which platform you bought the project? Would like to do something similar.

Wow that’s looks pretty cool!

Would love to hear what kind of things you already automated on your farm :)

I paid 13€ for an Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM key. I thought everyone is doing this as well?

Based on the location we get some first demographic information (like banking sector, shopping mall, university campus,..)

In case of political questions it is not enough to place only one station in one city but instead up to 20 stations in more than 5 cities. A typical question would be “Would you vote for Person A or Person B?” The system then periodically makes a pattern analysis and informs you about insights (“People with an academic background tend to vote for person A whereas people in north Germany tend to vote for B”)

The technology is most powerful when many stations are activated and orchestrated at the same time at different locations.

Would love to hear more about this. If you like shoot me a message with some of your experience to hello[at]buzzngo.io

Good point. Does anyone know of a good space vs. text ratio? Like 60:40 or even more space?