HP is in the rent-a-printer business now | Hacker News Reader

HP is in the rent-a-printer business now

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20 pointsthunderbong27 comments

Somebody should start a business that buys HP printers, re-flashes them with non-shitty firmware, modify for 3rd party ink support and resell them with appropriate markup. I'd support them financially if they'd also release the unencumbered firmware for personal use and buy that printer for myself.

Probably need a phalanx of lawyers to wage the inevitable legal war.

Which should turn into an anti-trust action against HP by the government.

Or at least it would, were free-market capitalism still an actual goal.

>Which should turn into an anti-trust action against HP by the government.

Or at least it would, were free-market capitalism still an actual goal.

It is curious that government intervention would be evidence of "free-market capitalism."

Do you believe that a fair and free market can exist without any governmental intervention?

I contend that a minimal amount of regulation is required to maintain the dynamic tension between buyer, seller, and marketplace.

No, I think it's a myth, propaganda.

Understood, I believe we have views on the same direction then :)

Just to be clear, I don't think a "fair and free market" can be accomplished at all, ever. It's an incoherent concept and really just juvenile. Your comments and contradictions above are enough to illustrate why.

Don't understand the aggression, I do share a similar view, no need to take jabs at it. You are fighting ghosts.

Frustrating as it is, everyone wants their one-off product to be a subscription now. Coffee, books, music, games, software...

I don't like it anywhere, but I guess HP is merely following a terrible trend.

I wasn't allowed to send a UPS package, last week, because I did not provide my phone number. I gave them the receiving company's public 1-800-number, which did not satisfy them; "I do not need your marketing just to send a package," ["you do"].

So I went to USPS and sold my few UPS shares. Good Thursday.

Can someone with a bit more know how, explain why open source printer hardware doesn’t exist yet?

For inkjet technology, it's the print head. Fundamentally, an inkjet printer works similar to a plotter, laser engraver, FDM 3D printer, or CNC router: There's a mechanism that accurately places the tool head at the desired X and Y position in order to do its business [0]. This part is a solved problem, there are many open-source reference designs to draw from.

For a printer, the devil is in the details though - quite literally: A printer needs to place tiny ink dots on the work piece in a fast, accurate, predictable, and repeatable manner. Placing just one single dot at a time would be prohibitively slow, so the print head needs an array of tiny nozzles in order to print multiple rows in one pass. The design also needs to ensure a consistent (and adjustable) dot size across all nozzles regardless of the ink level.

Designing and manufacturing such a print head is extremely complicated (if not impossible) for a hobbyist, and as of today there is no vendor-agnostic third-party design you can just buy off the shelf. The only forays into DIY printers are either rudimentary low-res single-nozzle designs [1], fully repurposing existing printer hardware [2], or reverse-engineering proprietary ink cartridges that come with a built-in print head [3].

[0] Technically, this is not entirely correct because a typical printer's Y axis is a rotating drum that transports the paper instead of a linear axis. Also, a printer's X axis is usually equipped with an encoder ribbon that allows for far more accurate positioning compared to the classic open-loop stepper motor systems used in many open-source designs.

[1] Example: https://hackaday.io/project/167446-diy-inkjet-printer

[2] Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VP8ORq2al8

[3] Example: https://ytec3d.com/hp45-inkjet-printhead/

I think it doesn't exist because the Brother brand is already good enough

Somebody please confirm, but my understanding is that the legal minefield of existing patents is vast, really hard to navigate and easy to sink your project.

Patents aren't granted forever. They expire after 20 yrs. The real barrier isn't the printer, but the cartridges and those designs keep changing. So if you want to have a successful open source printer design it needs to have a ready source of open ink cartridges as well.

I honestly hope this will happen in our future. But we're in the era of extortion capitalism with walled gardens and captive customers.

Wow, at this point HP must be one of the dirtiest common household brand names there is.

Anyone got a recommendation for a cheap and reliable printer that doesn‘t even need to print colors? I want to print out some sheet music from time to time.

Brother laser printers come highly recommended, they're basic, last long, and get out of your way. It has a higher initial cost compared to inkjet printers, the long term benefits make it worth it.

I'm still using the cheap Brother laser printer that I bought in 2003. It currently has a third-party drum and toner in it, which work very well.

Unfortunately, I had a bad experience with one of their inkjet printers a few years ago - it just stopped working after a few months.

I've had both Brother and Kyocera laser printers that were very reliable.

I'm got a Kyocera P2235dw right now. Slightly noisier, but otherwise works well.

I've heard good things about brother printers.

HP makes excellent monitors. Everything else not worth buying IMO.

Off-topic but LG has been recommended multiple times on HN for their monitors. I wouldn't trust HP for anything, even if they sold a new version of the HP 48GX.

HP monitors (Dells too), especially their U series, use better LG panels (LG rarely uses their own panels in their monitors, as they are too expensive; usually they use cheaper Chinese panels). HP also often uses Eyesafe certified panels, which have less aggressive blue light peak in their spectrum; as someone who is very sensitive to blue light, HP U32 is a treat to my eyes, compared to anything else I'v used so far. They also never lock settings in any of their monitors modes, which so many manufacturers misguidedly do.

start the countdown to HP's printer line going out of business

Another reason to get a boring Brother laser printer.

Related article from the Verge: https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-...

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