Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#21

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 12:05 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #5

Ok... so if I need a printer, that won't fuck me with stuff like this, what should I buy now? Except HP of course, and now Brother

You'll have to buy a pen and use it to trace out the stuff on your screen by holding a piece of paper up to it. Until they see this hack and the system blurs the screen whenever it senses third party pens being used.

If only there was some body that could pass laws that would prevent companies from doing such things. You know, like how phones have to use common charger cables.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#22

Post by BoorishBears » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 12:05 PM UTC

rob74 wrote: post #11

Another data point: I have been using a Brother inkjet multifunctional printer with high-capacity ink cartridges for ~five years now, it has no problems with third party ink, and it has worked perfectly from day one. My home office is apparently quite challenging for an inkjet printer, because it's located directly under the roof, so temperatures can get quite high in the summer, which the Epson printer I had before…

Did you read the post?

> I have an MFC-3750 that’s been running perfectly with Non-OE ink for more than a year now. The W1.56 firmware update, however, disabled the automatic color registration feature.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#23

Post by grishka » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 12:06 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #20

carpenecopinum wrote: post #13

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spendin…

> I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spending several hundred bucks on a device For printing something like once a month, it is even harder to justify wasting space by putting a printer. Printers should be put around in form of vending machines which would let you you insert a USB stick, drop some pennies and print the PDFs.

We had a machine exactly like that at my university.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#24

Post by zeusk » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 12:06 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #20

carpenecopinum wrote: post #13

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spendin…

> I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spending several hundred bucks on a device For printing something like once a month, it is even harder to justify wasting space by putting a printer. Printers should be put around in form of vending machines which would let you you insert a USB stick, drop some pennies and print the PDFs.

> Printers should be put around in form of vending machines which would let you you insert a USB stick, drop some pennies and print the PDFs.

Every Fedex Print/Office center has this service. Most city libraries do as well.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#25

Post by hotpotamus » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 12:06 PM UTC

carpenecopinum wrote: post #13

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spendin…

If you print something once a month, then shouldn't the starter cartridge last for about the life of the printer (maybe a decade or so)? That's been my experience with the B&W Brother laser printer I bought about 2010. I've never changed anything on it. And really I don't find much need to print anything these days anyway.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#26

Post by otherme123 » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 12:07 PM UTC

jlturner wrote: post #12

Bummer, I’ve been a fan of Brother in the past. Owned two monochrome laser printers that have been great over 10 years of service with not a single paper jam.

That's also for me. I've advocated for Brother before here in HN, as they just seem to sell printers that works, and avoid toner shenanigans.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#27

Post by reaperducer » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 12:07 PM UTC

pteraspidomorph wrote: post #8

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #5

Ok... so if I need a printer, that won't fuck me with stuff like this, what should I buy now? Except HP of course, and now Brother

Printers in general suck, but... Canon? Haven't had any headaches since I switched to them from HP. Then again, since it has been a few years, it's possible that they too went downhill since.

Canon isn't as bad, but it's headed that way.

Driver and firmware quality have declined in recent years.

I'm a tech person, and it took about three hours to set up the wireless Canon I bought a couple of months ago. When the thing has an error, it displays a QR code that just links to a PDF of the printed installation manual that it came with. Not helpful.

It also won't connect to eero routers because of a bug in the printer firmware, combined with eero removing the ability to have different SSIDs for 2 and 5Ghz networks.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#28

Post by viraptor » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 12:07 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #20

carpenecopinum wrote: post #13

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spendin…

> I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spending several hundred bucks on a device For printing something like once a month, it is even harder to justify wasting space by putting a printer. Printers should be put around in form of vending machines which would let you you insert a USB stick, drop some pennies and print the PDFs.

A lot of office equipment stores do that. For example in Australia Officeworks does that. You can even upload your bigger documents and drop in to pick up the ready result. https://www.officeworks.com.au/print-copy/info/pcc-print-and...

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#29

Post by Majestic121 » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 12:08 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #20

carpenecopinum wrote: post #13

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spendin…

> I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spending several hundred bucks on a device For printing something like once a month, it is even harder to justify wasting space by putting a printer. Printers should be put around in form of vending machines which would let you you insert a USB stick, drop some pennies and print the PDFs.

I don't know where you live, but such devices are pretty common at least in France : you can go to most supermarkets and print a couple pages for less than a euro.

Definitely more expensive than ink+paper if you print a lot, but for my uses (couple of times a year) it's a no-brainer.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#30

Post by thatguy0900 » Fri, Jun 24, 2022, 12:08 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #20

carpenecopinum wrote: post #13

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spendin…

> I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spending several hundred bucks on a device For printing something like once a month, it is even harder to justify wasting space by putting a printer. Printers should be put around in form of vending machines which would let you you insert a USB stick, drop some pennies and print the PDFs.

For what it's worth, if you have a staples nearby that's exactly what they offer. They accept emails too. I use it for my once a month printing, usually spend like 2$ on a small stack of papers.