DYMO's new label printer uses RFID tags to prevent the use of non-OEM paper
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I read about this recently when trying to download the driver package. In one brief act, Dymo ensured I will not buy their products again. The 'value' of this feature is zero to me, its just capture.
I would never buy a Keurig product nor a HP printer for this reason. Guess the list keeps getting longer.
Penny for your thoughts? HP has a permanent place on mine. I'll also reluctantly add Canon to my list, as I have a MP280-series printer that I very much enjoy using.
I've been suffering with it because I refuse to use the app, so it's either printing locally over USB (which has been utterly impossible) or a CUPS-based setup. I just about managed to set up cups and get it working (PPD files, etc.) and then it wouldn't print black. An hour later I thought of printing something in colour, worked fine, so the ink cartridge dried up. Great. Something else is wrong with it. This isn't including the fact that the software absolutely sucks, especially on Windows. I spent hours and hours trying to get it to work on Windows, with HP constantly begging me to install either a mobile application or some sort of weird DRM'd desktop program that'd send data to HP.
Even if I did want to put it on WiFi (I don't!), it's impossible to even do that (you'd think they'd make it easy, considering the data it sends to HQ). I tried my best to connect it with the WPS tomfoolery but it just wouldn't work. What did the manufacturer say? Oh, download the app of course.
Oh, and to top it all off: this WiFi printer does not have Ethernet, so it's situated right next to the router interfering on the 2.4GHz band with its useless WiFi Direct thing. I have no idea how to turn that off. It's one problem after another.
On the other hand, this Canon Pixma MP280 I have is one of the best printers I have ever had the joy of using. On Linux, you plug it in and it's no bother, aside from the ocassional glitch. I mostly use it for scanning, but have also done some printing on it a while back and it was totally fine with it. You just turn the printer on, open the Document Scanner app on the computer, and click Scan. No fucking apps plastered all over the manufacturer's website, no WiFi nonsense which completely falls apart. Just standard protocols. You don't even need a driver to use it on the computer, much less a full suite of programs like HP forces on you.
The only reason I'm suffering with the HP printer is because I bought a surplus of ink for it (thinking it was a good printer) and, bearing in mind the insane prices of these things (£10 a pop!), I don't really want to waste the ink.
I don't feel comfortable downloading apps. Maybe I should just get old printers. Oh, we have been thinking of getting an EcoTank. They look pretty good.
disassemble it and cut off the antenna. or ground it with a piece of a wire. or both.
They quickly backpedaled, but that could have just been because it was easy to defeat (you could cut the top off one of their pods and tape it in-front of the sensor). I would not be surprised if they tried RFID next.
I too will henceforth not touch Dymo with a ten foot pole.
So... you're being fucked by all their other products, and the one mentioned is one firmware upgrade away from fucking you too... Thank you, but no, no HP for me.
If you look closely at the official DYMO labels sold in recent years the packaging has changed color. The color was DYMO seeding the RFID stock into the market. Once saturated they launched the 550 with RFID.
The chip inside each roll is a special NFC that identifies the label dimensions and remaining label count. The NFC comes pre-loaded with 0xFFFF-Count in a special register that increments when hit with a non-password protected NFC command emitted by the printer when any label is ejected. So even if you don’t print, you just eject, the labels are depleted. There seems to be a buffer at the end for this kind of “rewind” process or user error … but it’s limited. A roll of 50 labels might have a counter that can be hit 60 times. The command to reset this counter is password protected.
There are many label converters (print shops that make blank labels) bent out of shape about this. Moreover, there are entire industries (think dental offices) that have standardized their processes around custom die cut labels made specifically for their use case. Since DYMO won’t bless the labels, they will never work in the LabelWriter 550.
When the 550 was launched I started hearing about it from my customers. I bought one off Amazon and the reviews were terrible. A few weeks later I checked and DYMO deleted the 550 product page and renamed their older 450 to become the 550, effectively inheriting the thousands of decent reviews from the 450… hiding the upset customers of the 550.
Just remember that DYMO is owned by private equity. I used to communicate with their dev team and they’ve gone silent. I got in contact with a few ex employees and they saw the writing on the wall… they bailed.
Anyways. My shameless plug:
I develop and sell label design software and I support DYMO, Brother, ROLLO, Zebra and a dozen other brands of thermal printers.
I’d love to offer a bundled solution to compete against DYMO… but I’ve yet to find a decent 300 DPI thermal printer with a positionable gap sensor and <1” print width. If someone knows of a printer with those specs please get in touch with me using the contact form on my app’s website: https://label.live
My app works with both thermal and color printers. Give it a shot and let me know if you have any questions or issues.
For awhile I limped along by buying a few cells online and jerry-rigging my own connectors with a soldering iron but after the printer itself finally died recently, I actually replaced it with an _older_ 160 model that uses AAA cells instead - go figure - newer is worse.
It’s just not economical to make battery cartridges for less than $30 each. You also can’t use the same cartridge design as e.g. a power tool manufacturer since all those designs are patented and they’ll sue you if you make something interchangeable.
Another unfortunate "feature" was that the device refused to be powered with it's own USB cable. It felt to me like the manufacturer were deliberately trying to limit your options as a customer so that you had to keep re-buying batteries from them - reminding me very much of the situation with printer ink cartridges.
It does feel like there needs to be a better tradeoff between consumer safety and repairability. I can replace nearly every part in my car with an aftermarket part, so why can't we do the same with these little computing devices etc?
These dorks won’t even sell me a replacement gear when their low quality plastic is the reason it broke in the first place. It’s got a D shaped slot & I haven’t been able to find a replacement.
I guess I don’t really hate on them for my situation. They made a fairly decent product (the rest of my 4XLs did very well over many years and tens of thousands of labels).
But this RFID thing is really wild, seems like maybe they are making the absolute worst possible choice here. There absolutely will be a hack around this and I expect Dymo will be stuck holding labels nobody’s willing to pay for at an even higher inventory cost.
"Verify Company Name is denying the warranty claim in violation of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act?"
That will probably get them to say, "No, but we'll do a goodwill repair/exchange this one time for you."
Cost: 30 seconds to type and click send.
If they don't budge, then contact the state's Attorney General, and lodge a complaint with the FTC. I've never gone the AG route, but the FTC has an online form and it's very easy to use. When buying a vehicle and the dealer did something illegal, my state had a form that was also very easy to find and use.
It just depends if you want to be someone who accepts getting pushed over and being ignorant of their resources, or if you want to spend a few minutes and do something that might have an impact.
Everyone has leverage in one form or another; it just depends if they want to look for it.
As for suing, I've never actually had to sue any companies, because I explained how I would file, how I would win, and how I would collect what I am owed if they didn't cut a check as ordered by the court's judgment.
This is the real problem. Get rid of these idiotic laws designed to create monopolies and stifle competition and companies that pull dystopic stuff like this will be done.
See how lexmark tried to sue about chip protected toner cartridges using the DMCA and got slapped down by the courts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v.....
If you built a printer where most, if not all of it's firmware existed on the ink or toner cartridges, then you could wield software copyright far more effectively here. You could have the printer wipe each cartridge when it's spent, so that it actually doesn't know how to print anything until you install a fresh cartridge. Copying the cartridge data would be copyright infringement, and resetting the chip would be a DMCA 1201 violation, because the print count is actually a licensing mechanism here.
One might argue that you could reimplement the printing firmware. However, this poses several practical problems:
- Reimplementing the firmware without infringing upon it requires detailed legal analysis and internal discipline regarding code copying. You don't strictly need to do clean-room, but most engineers have such a bad idea of how copyright works that it's probably advisable. Furthermore, you will almost certainly be sued for doing so and will need to explain yourself to a judge, which will cost millions and millions of dollars.
- Printers running reimplemented firmware may malfunction or break, which would void the warranty. (Granted, that probably doesn't mean much, but large business customers will care)
- The printer could be designed with secure boot features to refuse loading alternative firmware. While these may be circumventable, you're now distributing DMCA 1201 circumvention tools and will need to make some very legally specious arguments as to why you think it's OK to do so.
All of this costs lots of developer-hours in order to do and poses business risks. This also multiplies for each printer model - it's not like companies specifically design interchangeable ink cartridges and firmware, after all. Companies could specialize in this, of course, but one mistake will be fatal. In fact, even if we repealed DMCA 1201, many of these risks would remain.
While I admire the hacker ethic of breaking DRM, I don't think most businesses would actually go about doing so if such things were legalized. There's all sorts of ridiculously anti-consumer shit out there that companies haven't tried yet, and would be very expensive to break. What we need is a law that puts positive obligations on DRM vendors to provide unlock tools for lawful purposes, and court rulings that make misusing DRM to co-mingle copyright and non-copyright concerns (e.g. "you can't use our printer software without buying our ink") into a form of copyright abuse.
Edited to add: for example, the LPC8N04
Section 1201 was invented to protect DVDs primarily, and states that it is a crime to circumvent DRM technologies or to share the methods for circumventing DRM regardless of intent unless there is a Section 1201 exception, which is granted every three years on a Library of Congress review.
Making an audio transcription of a DRM-protected eBook for your blind mother who lives with you? Until recently (because the EFF won a 1201 exception until 2024), illegal, even if you didn't commit any copyright infringement by sharing it with other people.
As far as I know, no other civilized nation has anti-circumvention rules that do not consider intent. This rule is what allows John Deere to suppress tractor repair manuals, Apple to charge those who defeat their digital repair lockouts, DYMO to be able to sue anyone making paper with RFID tags to beat their system, and countless other fair-use activities to be restricted.
Repeal Section 1201. End the nonsense.
I'm pretty sure the EU has very similar law on it's books. DMCA 1201 is itself just an implementation of the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which pretty much obligates every country in the world to have a law similar to DMCA 1201. In fact, policy laundering anti-circumvention through the WTO is how the copyright maximalists overruled the public outcry against it the first time this was brought up.
Pretty blatantly just an excuse to try to restrict 3rd party paper.
Not saying that this benefit is worth the downsides of the specific implementation here, but it's a feature I'd like to have.
Too bad in the modern era anti-consumer seems to the path forward
https://www.dymo.com/label-makers-printers/rhino-label-maker...
Unfortunately all of the 3rd party generic labels I tried with it have very poor adhesive and will come unstuck after not very long at all. Whether applied flat to a surface or as a flag on a cable.
I found a whole half cabinet of equipment where the flags had come loose and fallen off the cables after 6 months in 30C temperatures at the rear side of servers/network equipment.
The original, more expensive dymo official labels did not have this problem.
Nowadays I am seeing more people report good results with cable-wrapped flush labels and others with certain Epson labelmakers.
Thermal printers are pretty simple, I’m sure this thing could last enough 20 years.
It depends on your print volume, but at some point the thermal head will start to wear out. On something common and simple like a GK420d this ain't terribly hard to replace, but it's definitely something to keep in mind.
But yeah, I've accumulated a couple ZPL printers from past jobs and they're fantastic. Even hand-writing ZPL is surprisingly pleasant (as far as printer languages go).
I don't think it would make sense to start declaring what product configurations are illegal, but we can certainly pave the road for those who want to do what is necessary to shame and dismantle these anti-human works.
The only negative is that it requires a local USB connection and it appears to only have a Windows driver. One of these days I want to try and kludge a RPi3 and CUPS to make it wireless but have yet to do so.
I guess I will need to think twice before committing to the brand.
edit: Yes "Dymo touts the benefits of the chipped label paper in its sales literature, including auto-detection and remaining label counts."
After all, RFID is also used for payment-card and other applications where security is necessary.
The RFID tag check is likely done by the driver running on the host system, where a semi or fully online database check are possible. Or they can just roll out a driver update for mysterious "compatibility and performance improvements" if they need to.