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Little Printers – HP Inc Strikes Again

Back in March, I wrote about an over-the-air software update to my wife’s OfficeJet Pro 6978 printer that locked out some 3rd-party ink cartridges that I had already purchased. (See “HP Inc tries to brick my wife’s printer. CEO approves and calls people like me “bad customers” on CNBC.”) In that situation, the 3rd-party ink supplier, LxTek, saved the day by supplying a replacement ink cartridge with an updated chip that jumped whatever new hurdle HP jammed into the printer’s firmware. I subsequently purchased another set of LxTek ink cartridges for the printer from Amazon and they worked as well.

However, after the firmware update, the printer started exhibiting another irritating trait. It would go to sleep and never reconnect with the Wi-Fi network in a way that allowed my wife’s PC to see it. After it went to sleep, it went “offline” and there seemed to be no way to bring it online. Power cycling the printer didn’t fix the problem. Power cycling the PC didn’t work either. Only by deleting and reinstalling the Windows 10 printer driver for this printer could I get the PC and printer talking once more. I didn’t consider this a good solution.

A bit of Google-fu told me that many other owners of this HP inkjet printer, and of other inkjet printer models from the same company, had the same problem. Further research indicated that this problem is bound up as part of HP Inc’s energy-saving Energy Star program. The printer’s setup menus allow you to choose the number of hours before the printer switches to sleep mode, but there’s no way to disable sleep mode entirely. I guess that a permanently sleeping printer saves electricity. It also saves ink and paper, but it doesn’t get the basic job or printing done, as suggested by the numerous online complaints about this problem with this printer.

Digging a little deeper, I discovered that the printer’s hard-wired Ethernet port might not share the same flawed design as the printer’s integrated Wi-Fi connection. Fortunately, there was an inexpensive way to test this theory. My house Wi-Fi network relies on a TP-Link AX5400 router and uses the company’s mesh routing scheme called OneMesh. Amazon was selling a TP-Link dual-band RE220 Mesh Wi-Fi Extender for $15, plus tax. This small module fits in your hand, plugs directly into any convenient electrical outlet, and provides extended range for your Wi-Fi network. It also provides a 100Mbps hard-wired Ethernet port.

 

TP-Link RE220 Wi-Fi Range Extender. Image credit: TP-Link

I ordered the RE220 extender. It arrived from Amazon a day later. I plugged it in, used TP-Link’s Tether app on my Android phone to add the new extender to my existing OneMesh system, and connected the extender to my wife’s printer with a short Ethernet cable. The printer sensed the hard-wired connection and disabled its Wi-Fi. My wife’s PC located the printer automatically using its MAC address, so I did not need to reinstall the printer driver. Now, the printer goes to sleep but it doesn’t lose connection to the PC, and a tap on its control panel wakes it up. This extra step is required to get the printer back online, but that’s much better than a daily reinstallation of the printer driver.

Printers need not work this way. My Canon ImageCLASS MF264dw laser printer is perfectly capable of waking up from a nap when I print something, even though it’s connected to my PC by an internal Wi-Fi port. The sleep problem is in the HP Printer’s internal Wi-Fi port and the way the printer interacts with its internal Wi-Fi hardware. Unfortunately, even if HP Inc fixes this bug in the printer’s firmware, that new firmware will never fix my wife’s printer because I’ll never allow another HP Inc firmware update to install itself in that printer, given HP’s attitude towards 3rd-party ink cartridges. It’s not that HP isn’t trying to worm its way back into my wife’s printer. I’m regularly getting pop-up advisories that a new firmware update for “antivirus” protection is available for installation. Fat chance, HP! Fool me once…

My success with the RE220 extender caused me to realize that this product could keep thousands of older printers with hard-wired Ethernet ports out of landfills. These older printers are often discarded because they lack Wi-Fi capability, and people are increasingly reluctant to string CAT-6 cables around their homes and offices. I recently saw a very nice Brother heavy-duty printer and scanner on sale on my local Craigslist with two unopened toner cartridges and an extra imaging drum for $125. It lacked Wi-Fi capability, but it had an Ethernet port. An RE220 extender could easily add Wi-Fi to that printer and to many other printers in similar circumstances. What a great way to reduce e-waste.

It occurs to me that the same trick will work for a wide range of Ethernet-enabled electronics test gear designed in the late 20th and early 21st century – like many instruments made by HP, Agilent, Keysight, and Tektronix – which have Ethernet LAN ports but lack Wi-Fi capability. For example, my Siglent SDS1202X-E DSO has an Ethernet port but no Wi-Fi capability. Although it sits within 20 feet of my TP-Link AX5400 router, and the router has a spare Ethernet LAN port, I’m not tempted to string a cable from one side of the room to another. However, adding Wi-Fi to the DSO for $15 looks mighty attractive, should I ever feel the need to put the scope on my network.

Unfortunately, every engineering fix has a cost. In this case, there’s the cost of the RE220 extender plus the cost of the energy to operate the extender. The unit gets fairly warm, so it is dissipating some watts of power. However, the RE220 extender isn’t restricted to TP-Link OneMesh systems. It will extend any existing Wi-Fi network and will provide a 100Mbps Ethernet LAN port, OneMesh or not.

Note that this solution won’t work with USB printers, however. Those printers will require a hardware print server. There may be inexpensive, standalone Wi-Fi print servers out there, but I’ve not yet seen one. If you know of such a device, and you know that it’s a good product, please leave a comment below. I’m certain many people would be able to use such a product.

One final note: HP Inc has now discontinued the OfficeJet Pro 6978 printer.

4 thoughts on “Little Printers – HP Inc Strikes Again”

  1. A simple RPi (even the 0ld 3’s or 4’s, or any other tiny SBC with USB, ethernet and/or wifi) will do the trick with USB printers. Burn an SD card, boot it, connect it to the local network (wired, wifi – it doesn’t matter), connect and configure the printer (it’s a very simple task, CUPS will handle it for you and will “share” the printer over a multitude of network printing protocols), turn on the overlay mode (this will make the SD card immutable) and forget it.

  2. Sounds like an excellent concept to be productized, bachvaroff. I’m not aware of any good commercial USB print servers that will put USB printers on Wi-Fi for little money. Has someone written Raspberry Pi software to do this?

  3. When I bought my printer in 2007, I realized that I never printed photos, so black-and-white printing was all I needed. I bought an HP office laser printer. I still have 90% of toner in the original cartridge, as the toner can’t dry out (no water) and I don’t print very much.

    1. I too use a laser printer, traneusee, but my wife requires color printing. I’ve found that even laser printers suffer from driver rot over the years. My Canon 3-in-1 laser is a marvelous machine and I have two of them, but set its driver to PCL compatibility mode and printing slows appreciably. Set it to UFR II mode and printing goes much faster. Even here, you need some tech wizardry.

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