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TR-017 / Software & Control

kotPrinter

A Python CLI for a cat-shaped Bluetooth printer whose official app was the least useful part of the package.

PYTHONBLUETOOTHRFCOMMCLIOPEN SOURCE
Cat printer producing a command-line test receipt
RELEASED / V0.301 PHOTOS

THE PROTOCOL / BLUETOOTH RFCOMM

The app was the first problem.

The printer arrived with a mobile app. The app was, gently speaking, not great. Existing tools did not work with this particular cat-shaped machine either, so the reasonable next step was to capture its Bluetooth traffic and reverse-engineer enough of the protocol to print from a Raspberry Pi. kotPrinter turns text or images into a 384-dot-wide monochrome raster and sends it over RFCOMM. It is not CUPS, not a print server and definitely not enterprise infrastructure. It prints tiny receipts without a manufacturer account. Mission accomplished.

Category
Software & Control
Project ID
TR-017
Source files
Available
Photographs
1