It’s hard to deny that label printers have become more accessible than ever, but an annoying aspect of many of these cheap units is that their only user interface is a proprietary smartphone app connected via Bluetooth. The Fichero-branded label printer that [0xMH] obtained for a mere 10 Euro at a store in the Netherlands was much the same, with an associated app that doesn’t just bind it to smartphones, but also requires no fewer than 26 permissions. Obviously this required some reverse-engineering of the BLE protocol.
The fruits of this reverse-engineering effort can be found in the GitHub repository, with the most interesting part probably being that this Fichero is just one of many relabeling of generic label printers, this one being an AiYin D11, by Xiamen Printer Future Technology. This means that other iterations of this D11 will work exactly the same, as they all use the same ‘LuckPrinter’ SDK.
[0xMH] provides a Web GUI to talk with a local D11 printer, though you can also use the Python scripts, or of course implement the protocol using your favorite language and frameworks, so that you can finally control a cheap label printer from a PC or even BLE-equipped MCU like the software gods intended.
Thanks to [T-ice] for the tip.
Huh, I was just thinking this is even cheaper than the one I got from Ali a while ago that looks like the exact same thing under a different brandname (niimbot), but then I checked and the Ali one was only 15 euros at the time, so the price makes sense (as the 10 euro price here is a temporary reduction and I think it’s normally sold for 20).
Anyway if it’s the same on the inside then I’m very happy with it, besides of course the horrible app. But the Niimmbot version already had some alternative control methods from a PC via bluetooth (Niimblue), which I see from the github the web versionof this one is also based on.
I just recently bought it because I thought it was super cheap and wanted to maybe spend some time reversing it. And now, there is already simple program to use it from pc. Best buy ever :D