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HP Introduces A Bluetooth Printer

Posted by timothy on from the priming-the-pump dept.

man_ls writes: "I found this on C|Net, it's an HP Printer that also supports Bluetooth. You can read about it here. Not that the Bluetooth will do anything except interfere with 802.11 wireless networks, but it's an interesting feature to have." Actually, Bluetooth shouldn't interfere with 802.11 except in confusing product marketing, right? Nice to see that at least one printer will actually hit the market with a short-range radio interface instead of wire (inconvenient) or IR (poor interoperability).

1 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Re:this is why by stripes · · Score: 5, Funny
    No, because ethernet ports are generally built into the mainboard, so would require a costly replacement of the hardware and firmware to be able to support Bluetooth, 802.11 or whatever.

    I think the point is if you have a postscript printer on your IP network, and you hook up an 802.11 access point t your IP network, then your printer magically becomes an 802.11 printer as well (unless you fire wall off the 802.11 part, which is frequently a good idea, but not as frequently done).

    The upside? One 802.11 access point gets all your printers. The downside? The longer range of 802.11 lets people outside your office waste your paper. Plus IP stacks on many printers are insanely fragile, so someone could break the printer pretty simply.