Reliable receipt printer connection bluetooth VS wifi printers

[Stephen34]

Hello, please share your experience.....is it possible to use multiple ipads with the wifi reciept printer since they are not directly connected (I assume)? Also, being that its not directly connected how well does the wifi printer work as compared to the bluetooth printer? Is the wifi slower to start printing? Also, which one more reliably reconnects to be able to start printing again? We take the ipads out of the store often and people in the store are not tech savvy so I am trying to figure out which printer will work best and the ipad automatically reconnecting back to it. I know that the ipads reliably reconnect to our wifi automatically when we come back in the store with them so I am ASSUMING (dangerous) that they will automatically be able to print since the printer will be there on the same wifi and always hooked up to the wifi (the printer stays in the store all the time, only the ipads leave)

Thank You for any advice you have or sharing your experience with either of the printers.

[Emilie_Christen]

I have the SAME question about wifi vs. bluetooth! Did anyone ever get back to you about this? Wondering wch wld work best and what to order...

[Kemory]

Did you get a response on this??

[Vethermond]

Oh, seems like I'm not the only person who has suffered with this. And I also didn't find a solution to this problem, although I searched for information on the internet for a very long time. I personally think that using ipads with wifi for receipt printer is not the best idea but who knows. By the way, I recently bought a very nice laserjet pro at https://www.mrdepot.ca/collections/hp-toner-cartridges for affordable price. This is a great purchase, as I need to print a lot of materials for my new job as a marketing specialist.

[Roostcollection]

We have two iPad registers. Two StarMicronic's receipt printers. One is a Land line. Never fails. Second is a wifi-Hotspot. Disconnects frequently.

When it disconnects the receipts print out on the land printer. Can get confusing when busy but at least you have a receipt.

Primary register: iPad, land printer, cash drawer.
Second register: Ipad, Wifi printer

We have one cash drawer. (do to space) It is attached to the land printer, so we try not to do cash sales on the wifi system. If we do we have to open the drawer manually from the primary system.

No Bluetooth other than credit card swipe, tap readers that disconnect multiple times a day. They really suck.

[Anuska_De_Luca]

How does the LAN printer receive the signal from the mobile ipad? I do not understand that. I assume the ipad doing the sale using the shopify POS app needs to connnect to the reciept printer, but f the ipad is on Wifi and the recipet printer is on LAN, how are they actually connected? Can anyone explain, sorry 🙂

[Rahul-LMP]

Same question how will lan connect to ipad? 

[Lawson_Thalmann]

I'm not familiar with the ability to connect lan to an iPad, but I've learned that if you want to connect one iPad to one register, use the bluetooth register. But, if you want to be able to connect more than one, you'd need to use wifi. However, be wary with multiple wifi printers. I've learned the hard way that they'll randomly connect to a different printer and print at that printer to the confusion of the cashiers. 

[Kpizzolato]

What did you end up purchasing, this is where I'm stuck right now too.   

[marber]

The Bluetooth star micronics printers are nightmares with iPads. Always disconnecting and always at the worst time. Any advice on wifi vs Bluetooth printers would be appreciated 

[Roostcollection]

Just looked at your business. Your mobile. disregard my recommendations.

For anyone else that read this:

If at all possible try to go to a lan printer. Our lan printer is up 99% of the time. We are a retail store so we do not need mobile devices. You will have to run a Cat5e line from the lan printer to your router.

Our Wifi printer does OK. looses connection about every other month. The pain is it take about 3 hours to reconnect. The step by step instructions are not accurate, that's being on the phone with shopify. It has to run on 2.4 Ghz. You must have a duel band router.

LAN, that's all I'd go with. I'd sell you my wifi and replace it with a second lan unit.

[808blue]

I had tried for a day to connect my Star TSP 1433 111 W  printer following there instructions. Nothing works and nothing online that I could find. What is the correct way to do that? Mahalo for any help

[AlexanderCoe]

We've used Bluetooth and Wifi Printers for the last year.

Bluetooth works almost flawlessly with *one* POS. If you only have one or two POS systems I would buy one bluetooth printer for each.

The wifi printer has consistent connection issues rendering it almost useless. It can connect to multiple devices. It loses connection sometimes within minutes, before you can complete a sale. I would not recommend it for anyone. I spent months trying to fix it in many ways and was told by Star Micronics it's a Shopify issue (seems correct) and Shopify does not have a fix. They should not be selling that printer.

I am interested to see if the LAN printer works better for connecting many mobile devices to one printer (assuming the author meant Land=LAN and not land=bluetooth). Any feedback on this would be appreciated before I buy.