Does anyone know if there is a web-enabled thermal printer available?  Similar to the current HP officejet printers that allow you to print via email. 

I'd like to set one up in a kitchen and then be able to print to it from outside the restaurant network.

Thanks!

Eddie

Blue Shoe Mobile

http://www.blueshoemobile.com

Mobile Ordering Apps for Restaurants

There are on line ordering systems that once an order is taken and paid for, would print to either an IP thermal or dot matrix printer. In some cases, they actually interface with your POS for reporting as well.

Quality is NOT expensive, it's PRICELESS

 Trust is good, Control is BETTER

 It has become painfully clear, that IQ's should be required
 prior to issuance of a voters registration card!!

If I'm reading your question right, Outlook can be configured to automatically send emails to a printer as they arrive. You would just need to client running all the time and polling every minute (you might ba able to configure it to poll more often). I would wager there are similar open source or free options available out there that are not a bulky as Outlook.

This is not a solution I would recommend. If anyone gets this auto print email address, then they can spam you to death or, if this is for printing kitchen orders, send your kitchen bogus orders. Email is not secure so interception of the email address is not overly difficult for someone with devious intentions.

Steve Sommers
Shift4 Corporation -- the next generation of Enterprise Electronic Payments ( blog )

These days you can buy a tiny solid state computer for less than the price of a POS printer, so I would recommend that you do that, attach the computer to the printer, then operate the printer using any of several internet printing protocols, and you can access that over the Internet.  There are many advantages to this approach, not the least of which is that you now have no limits on what you can do.  The list of advantages is very long, starting with a printer spooler, the ability to communicate back to the person ordering that the order is received, to send a receipt, to send information about anticipated preparation completion, and on and on and on.  Actually, you can also buy a display for less than the price of a POS printer, so perhaps you should think about doing that.  I'm putting $200 10" tablets in kitchens these days, and they cost just about exactly the same as a POS printer.

What you are correctly perceiving, however, is that POS is becoming a process of allowing customers to interact directly with the people who have the jobs of preparing food & beverages and that the hospitality industry is fed up with spending tens of thousands of dollars on POS systems.

Good thoughts.  We want to create a process to make it incredibly easy for us to take an order from someone ordering on their phone, directly into the kitchen.  POS integration is one but it can be daunting to attempt to integrate with the many flavors of POS systems that are used by restaurants so we where trying to find another solution. 

Currently we send the restaurants the order via fax, email, voice and sms but were thinking through the ability to hit a thermal printer directly.

Thanks again,

Eddie

Thermal printers are NOT recommended for use in a kitchen. Printcan smear from greasy hands, heat can discolor the paper and there is no ability to print modifies in red!

Quality is NOT expensive, it's PRICELESS

 Trust is good, Control is BETTER

 It has become painfully clear, that IQ's should be required
 prior to issuance of a voters registration card!!

Quote (original post by: David_L)

Thermal printers work very well in kitchens, especially when set to double wide, double high text format.  You never have to change the ribbon or suffer difficult to read text because the ribbon isn't getting enough ink.  Red modifiers are only an imaginary advantage.  Thermal printers give you a nice crisp result every time.

Quote (original post by: David_L)

Just proved once again your ignorance about restaurant operations !!

Quality is NOT expensive, it's PRICELESS

 Trust is good, Control is BETTER

 It has become painfully clear, that IQ's should be required
 prior to issuance of a voters registration card!!

A coated thermal paper has been available now for several years that overcomes the greasy fingers, heat related problems of normal thermal paper.

However, I would hesitate to recommend any system that printed directly to the kitchen from the web. For obvious reasons.

Quote (original post by: posperson)

Indeed.

It's such a well known fact that I didn't even think I had to mention it.