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Label printing

Pantry Raider can print labels to a small Bluetooth thermal label printer, so you can stick a name and a use-by date on leftovers, prepped ingredients, and freezer bags. It also prints to any regular network printer for full-page recipes. Printing is optional and off until you turn it on.

The tested Bluetooth printer is the SUPVAN T50M (and the T50M Pro and T50M Plus), a pocket-size 203 dpi label printer.

Turning on printing

Open Settings, Printing and turn on Enable printing. This is the master switch for labels and recipe printouts; it does not by itself connect a printer. On a Pantry Raider appliance with no printer set up yet, the panel also offers an Install now button that prepares the base printing system (the standard network path); on a plain server, follow the one-line steps shown there instead.

Connecting a SUPVAN T50M over Bluetooth

The T50M talks Bluetooth, not the network, so it needs a small bridge on the device before it can show up like any other printer. This is only available on a Pantry Raider appliance today (not a plain server); see below if you are running a headless install.

The Bluetooth label printer panel in Settings, Printing walks you through one step at a time, rather than a single button that quietly runs a several-minute install:

  1. Press Set up. The panel shows its progress and a status of Not set up, Setting up, Ready, or Failed; the first run can take several minutes while it prepares the printer software, and later runs are quick.
  2. Charge the T50M and load a roll of labels.
  3. Once the panel says Ready, turn the printer on and make sure it is not already paired to a phone (most of these printers only talk to one device at a time), then press Find my printer, which jumps straight to the search.
  4. The T50M appears there like any network printer, including a T50M Pro that announces itself as a bare serial number instead of a friendly name; add it and pick it as your label printer.

Re-running setup later is a small link rather than the main button, so a device that is already Ready does not look stuck. On a satellite (a thin display pointed at your main server), the panel says plainly that the printer works there and is shared up to your main server, since printers are chosen on the server; see Printing labels and documents.

If Find printers does not turn up anything new once the panel says Ready, make sure the printer is powered on and nearby, then try again; it only advertises over Bluetooth while it is awake. If the printer has auto-powered off after sitting idle, a print job tells you to turn it back on and try again rather than failing silently.

Set your label size (Settings, Printing, Label size) to match your stock, or pull the sizes the printer itself advertises and pick one; a label sent with the wrong size can come out blank.

Tips:

  • Keep the printer close to the Pantry Raider box. Bluetooth range is short, and a wall or a full cupboard between them will drop the connection.
  • If the printer stops showing up, power it off and on and search again.
  • If setup shows Failed, press Set up again; a flaky network during the first-time build is the most common cause.

Headless installs (no browser access yet)

For a device you are provisioning without the setup screen, Bluetooth printing can also be turned on from the command line by setting ENABLE_BLUETOOTH_PRINTING=1 before running the print stack installer, or by adding BLUETOOTH_PRINTING=1 to the stack's .env file so it is picked up on the next run. The in-app Set up button above is the same thing; use whichever is easier to reach for your setup.

Adding other Bluetooth label printers

Only the SUPVAN T50M family is included today. Other cheap Bluetooth label printers (for example Phomemo and Niimbot) speak their own protocols, so each brand needs its own bridge to work with Pantry Raider. Those are not built in yet. If you have one of these and would like it supported, let us know which model you have so it can be looked at.

A plain USB or network printer that supports driverless printing (IPP Everywhere) does not need any of this: it works through the standard printing system once you enable printing, no Bluetooth setup involved.