• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Bluetooth Printing from your Android / Droid device

I recently got an HP Photosmart printer for my birthday, and I was able to print pics from my phone via Bluetooth. Love it!
Last night, however, I tried printing an e-mail from my phone, and found that there was no option to "print" or "share" via bluetooth. So, this would DEFINITELY be an app I'd be interested in. Nothing better than being able to print something from the comfort of my couch, without having to spend the money on a laptop. :D

Can't wait to see what you come up with!

-C
 
I have registered for these forums entirely to post in this thread and beg you for this app! This is exactly what I'm hoping for!

I have an HP H470WBT printer, and so far the best I've been able to do is use the app called "Bluetooth File Transfer" to push an image to it via OBEX Push. That's less than ideal.

My end goal is to be able to use this in my work. I do in-home and small business tech support, and would love to be able to bring up my online invoicing software, create an invoice, save the PDF to my phone, and print it to my HP printer. That would be incredible.

PLEASE post here when you have this app working. I would gladly pay for such an app. No question about it.
 
I have to say that this is a great idea for an app. But here's my concern:

Having to individually set up each printer on each unique network seems cumbersome. Personally, if I need to print something out, I'm at a computer that it attached to a local printer. I am having a hard time thinking of a situation where I will need/want to print something from my phone where I would not be at a computer. Maybe if I'm in a meeting with a client I might want to print an immediate email that comes in, but again, it would be time consuming to set up a printer using the current methods in these apps just to get something to print.

Now I can see the use if I want to print something from the Google cloud, but again, I am most likely in an office I am unfamiliar with and will not know which printer to use, will not have time to set it up, etc.

I don't mean to sound negative. Just want to give some constructive end user feedback from someone who would actually want to use this type of service.
 
Timaphillips said:
Having to individually set up each printer on each unique network seems cumbersome.
Click to expand...
Um, not sure what you mean here. The whole idea of this app is a 1:1 relationship between phone and printer. There's no network setup, just pairing, unless I'm misunderstanding how this developer is going to create his app...

I am having a hard time thinking of a situation where I will need/want to print something from my phone where I would not be at a computer.
Click to expand...
Well, I just gave a situation directly above your post. Just because you don't have a need for this doesn't mean others wouldn't :)

Maybe if I'm in a meeting with a client I might want to print an immediate email that comes in, but again, it would be time consuming to set up a printer using the current methods in these apps just to get something to print.
Click to expand...
Do you have any experience with the H470WBT we've been talking about? It's a great little battery operated printer. It takes about 15 seconds for it to get into printing-ready mode, during which you could be bringing that email up for printing. If this app essentially placed a "Print" option in the menu list or Send To list on a GMail message, I could easily print any email in under 20 seconds (provided I had paper with me ;) ).

Now I can see the use if I want to print something from the Google cloud, but again, I am most likely in an office I am unfamiliar with and will not know which printer to use, will not have time to set it up, etc.
Click to expand...
Ahh, I think I was confused and didn't understand where you were coming from here. I think you're looking at this from the point of view of someone coming into an unknown environment and finding a printer to print to. I might be wrong, but I think that mmgtony (and I) are coming from the point of view that you are carrying a bluetooth printer around with you. Granted, not a lot of people are doing that, but this would open the door for more people to do so.
 
Sure, if you are carrying a battery powered printer around with you that would be ideal. But most end users won't want to have to buy a new printer just for this. I consider myself to be a tech junkie but woudn't buy a printer for this type of use. I'd rather tell the client that I will email the attachment to them. I find that most clients think emailing an attachment is tech-savvy already.

If the developer is trying to fill a niche, I'm sure they also want to know how big that niche is.
 
Timaphillips said:
If the developer is trying to fill a niche, I'm sure they also want to know how big that niche is.
Click to expand...
Naturally, and I agree. It's going to have a small audience. Still, there are plenty of apps on the market that I look at and think "there can't be many people interested in that." I'm just happy that someone is willing to do it.

And hey, if there's an app that makes this possible, I do think that a few people might go out and get one of these printers. They're quite cool, I assure you ;)

You're right, most people would be fine with just getting an email, but I can tell you that most of my clients like to have the paper too. This way I can do both.
 
If you are in an environment with office copiers many of the Sharp copier/printers have printing through FTP. I am not sure about other brands but that makes it easy for me to print PDF, txt, and images straight from my Droid to the MFP. :)
 
I would love to be able to print from my phone. I am a contract networking field tech and regularly get calls/emails for new jobs. It would be really nice to run by the home office and print out the work order without having to either unpack the laptop or go to the "desktop" machine (which is setup to be my A/V box & runs 64 bit linux). Just send to the printer before I even unlock the door (or from the driveway if I can do WiFi).
 
Hey, so any progress on this? I have a Nexus One now and would love to be able to print from it to my HP portable.
 
Hi there -

any more news on the printer access via Bluetooth? I am looking for mobile access (remote interior regions) to print receipts on the go from an inexpensive HTC Tattoo.
 
Ive tried like 2 or 3 different printing apps and have yet to come across one that actually works. If you could get the Android to connect to a printer through wifi, you'd be loved.

As for BT. I'm not sure there would be a large demand for that. You have to remember, people here are usually techies, so hooking up the Droid to a printer via BT is no problem. BUT for the average Droid user, I'm not sure they'd know how to or have the right equipment to connect the Droid via BT.

Personally, I would work on getting the Droid to print via wifi first. It's something almost everyone has and knows how to use, for the most part. Then explore a BT option.
 
Sorry, but I think you're missing the point entirely.

First of all, I've seen several apps that let you print over WiFi, so that's already accomplished.

Second, printing over WiFi requires that you have a network in place to connect to. That means you have to have a printer connected to a router and then connect the phone to that router as well. The idea of bluetooth printing is that you print DIRECTLY to the printer over bluetooth. No WiFi printer I've ever seen connects directly to another WiFi device. That's just not how it works.

So the reason WiFi printing is useless to me is that when I need to print from my phone, it's usually when I'm in a location I'm not usually in. If I wanted to print over WiFi, I'd have to have my own WiFi printer and connect that to their network, or there would have to be a WiFi printer on site (which is not common). Then I'd have to connect my phone to their network, find the printer, and send the print job.

With bluetooth printing, I could just power on my bluetooth printer, my phone would find it automatically, and I'd print to it. See how much easier that is?

Currently I use a netbook for this. I'll finish work at a client's house, quickly whip out my netbook and printer, and in about two total minutes I have an invoice printed out for them. I'd love to not have to take out my netbook for this.

It's very frustrating that the original poster in this thread seems to have completely abandoned this project, especially since he seemed to be working with the same bluetooth printer I am. I've tried several apps that claim to be able to send files over OBEX to a printer, which my printer should be able to understand and print out. However, when I try to print out a web page this way, it does print, but the result is merely a printout with the URL of the page I'm trying to print. Grr.

PLEASE! Somebody make a bluetooth printing app!
 
Dignan17 said:
Sorry, but I think you're missing the point entirely.

First of all, I've seen several apps that let you print over WiFi, so that's already accomplished.

Second, printing over WiFi requires that you have a network in place to connect to. That means you have to have a printer connected to a router and then connect the phone to that router as well. The idea of bluetooth printing is that you print DIRECTLY to the printer over bluetooth. No WiFi printer I've ever seen connects directly to another WiFi device. That's just not how it works.

So the reason WiFi printing is useless to me is that when I need to print from my phone, it's usually when I'm in a location I'm not usually in. If I wanted to print over WiFi, I'd have to have my own WiFi printer and connect that to their network, or there would have to be a WiFi printer on site (which is not common). Then I'd have to connect my phone to their network, find the printer, and send the print job.

With bluetooth printing, I could just power on my bluetooth printer, my phone would find it automatically, and I'd print to it. See how much easier that is?

Currently I use a netbook for this. I'll finish work at a client's house, quickly whip out my netbook and printer, and in about two total minutes I have an invoice printed out for them. I'd love to not have to take out my netbook for this.

It's very frustrating that the original poster in this thread seems to have completely abandoned this project, especially since he seemed to be working with the same bluetooth printer I am. I've tried several apps that claim to be able to send files over OBEX to a printer, which my printer should be able to understand and print out. However, when I try to print out a web page this way, it does print, but the result is merely a printout with the URL of the page I'm trying to print. Grr.

PLEASE! Somebody make a bluetooth printing app!
Click to expand...

But the average person doesn't have a bluetooth printer. Most people just have a printer hooked up to the computer.
 
You're right. That's why this thread exists, to fill a need. You're essentially talking about a completely different need. That's fine, and I think people should work on an app that does that too, but I and some others need this ability. Granted, a VERY small number of people do, but I can't tell you how helpful it would be to me.

Besides, if I were in a place where I could print over WiFi to a printer, it's probably in a place where I have easy access to a computer that's probably already turned on (if you're trying to print to a USB printer), which is far easier to print from.
 
Dignan17 said:
You're right. That's why this thread exists, to fill a need. You're essentially talking about a completely different need. That's fine, and I think people should work on an app that does that too, but I and some others need this ability. Granted, a VERY small number of people do, but I can't tell you how helpful it would be to me.

Besides, if I were in a place where I could print over WiFi to a printer, it's probably in a place where I have easy access to a computer that's probably already turned on (if you're trying to print to a USB printer), which is far easier to print from.
Click to expand...
Not always, printer share allows you to print via wifi with no computer.
 
What he meant was that if the printer has WiFi capabilities, odds are that it is getting it from a WiFi router of some sort - and where there is a router, there is usually access to a computer that can also connect to said router.

That being said, everyone please get off the high horses and stop with the pissing contest. There is no "My request is better than yours" going on here, it was an open call for RFFs. Let's just leave it at that.

IOW - got a feature request, make the request. Don't agree with someone else's request, STFU.
 
johnlgalt said:
What he meant was that if the printer has WiFi capabilities, odds are that it is getting it from a WiFi router of some sort - and where there is a router, there is usually access to a computer that can also connect to said router.
Click to expand...
That's pretty much what I was saying. I find it unlikely that you could print over WiFi DIRECTLY to a WiFi printer without going through a router. Perhaps it's possible, I haven't heard of it.

That being said, everyone please get off the high horses and stop with the pissing contest. There is no "My request is better than yours" going on here, it was an open call for RFFs. Let's just leave it at that.
Click to expand...
Yeah, sorry, that's sort of what I was getting at. I'm happy to have other requests in other threads asking for someone to support decent WiFi printing, but this thread is specifically about bluetooth printing, and there ARE people out there who want it. Just because there's not many of them doesn't mean we shouldn't want it. I can't tell you how much I'd welcome this ability.

That said, it looks like the guy who started this thread has abandoned it. Not a peep from him for quite some time now... darn...
 
I'm not saying I don't want BT printing. And I didn't mean to start anything or insult anyone. I'm just saying I think there needs to be a reliable WiFi printing app before a BT printing app and A LOT more people would find that a lot more useful. Coming from the developers standpoint, you want to put something out to the majority to get the name out and then move on to something to please the minority.

BT printing is certainly a good idea, and I'm sure eventually will be supported. But I think there needs to be a WiFi printing service that actually works before BT. BTW - if anyone can find one, let me know!
 
I understand what you're saying, but I don't think you're getting my point. What I'm saying is that you should have been pursuing this in a completely different thread because it's a completely different request. Your request would be useless to the people who want bluetooth printing, because it's such a different usage case.

But all this back and forth is meaningless anyway, because nobody is listening to either of us. Nobody is going to create an app that does either of these things.

In fact, your request will be accomplished first, I suspect, when Google puts forth their printing initiative and once there are more HP printers that can print from emailed documents. There's a printer out now, in fact. You should go check it out.
 
What is the progress of the application? I am very interested. I have a second home without a computer but I have a bluetooth printer and would love to use my Android Ally to print straight from it emails/docs/attachments. I already can print pictures with my HP Photosmart 309a but no luck finding something that will help me with anything else. Please tell me it is available......
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom