Mini Thermal Picture Printers - one in a camera (Mat on tat)

[@markbryant4641]

I bought my 7 year old daughter one of these cameras last Christmas. I was VERY disappointed with the printouts but she has used it a hell of a lot. It's a really good toy. She prints out her photos and colours them in for hours on end. She also uses it for school work. But yeah, ultimately disappointing. ...for a 45 year old.

[@robc4191]

45??? Mate I think your daughter's a bit old for coloring

[@g-r-a-e-m-e-]

@@robc4191 7

[@randyrenne7759]

@@g-r-a-e-m-e- 8

[@electronicengineer]

@@robc4191 Reading comprehension. Get some!

[@BLY99]

@@randyrenne7759 9

[@TheKaappari]

The grayscale print of the church cemetery could be used as convincing black metal album art.

[@AsukaLangleyS02]

I mean fecal matter could also be used.

[@BAgodmode]

DEMONESTRANOMICONS latest album BLOOD FLESH CHURCH OF THE SAD HINTERLANDS

[@dashriprock9014]

Gray Sabbath's debut album.

[@Amy_Dunn]

Or make a fake ghost photo. 😆

[@alldreamsfalldown]

'Enjoy Little Happiness' would be the album title.

[@darkdoescosplays]

"It's clearly upsampling, or upscaling, or up it's own..." 😂 Excellent 😂

[@caramelldansen2204]

Mat is the embodiment of northern charm!

[@strugglingparodox5709]

His humor is under appreciated, imo

[@jennoscura2381]

I am an artist that enjoys working with low rez cameras. One of my best photos was done with a 1.2 MP camera on a Palm PDA. It was done with native black and white. I can imagine getting some really awesome artistic photos with a thermal printer. I would then pop the print on my scanner. It would be fun to do the 5 strips, scan them in, and stitch them together in software.

[@anisolo07]

Do you post your pics somewhere? am curious about your Palm PDA pic... i loved those phones. You encouraged me to continue shooting with the toy cameras with your comment. Thank You.

[@ZGryphon]

There was a point in my life, long ago, when I coveted nothing else in the world so much as a particular thermal printer. My parents bought the family's first computer, a Timex Sinclair 1000 (US version of the Sinclair ZX81), and the manual that came with it included a little catalog of accessories you could get for it. One of them was a Timex-branded thermal printer. For some reason, I desperately wanted one with all of my nine-year-old heart, but my parents refused to buy it. It cost more than the computer itself, and they rightly concluded that a printer that printed on roll paper the width of a grocery receipt wasn't likely to be of any use.

[@8_Bit]

The Timex Sinclair 1000 was also my first computer; I didn't get the printer then either, but do have one now, but I think the power supply is either missing or broken. If I recall correctly, it has strange requirements too, like 24V. If I can get it working, I'll make a video of it; thanks for the reminder.

[@mor4y]

@@8_Bit is it a weird 24v AC supply....? I've a nagging feeling in my head that I used a chunky Netgear power brick for a router to get 24v AC for a weird thermal printer I came across before

[@Loweko1170]

That fake screen protector that is just a tag in one corner really is a whole new low.

[@TheNasaDude]

I think that's just a tab to make the screens easier to handle at the factory. It looks like Techmoan needed some force to remove it, more than what a normal screen protector would beed

[@Trekeyus]

I can't believe they've sunk that low

[@GeorgeVCohea-dw7ou]

Now, I'm wondering about the 32gb micro sd card. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fpq0gWieqbSWhsU Those have been fudged for a while, but then again, I guess, it would have been noted in the video, if there had been an issue.

[@MultipleObjectSelector]

@@GeorgeVCohea-dw7ou Shady flash storage is still a thing, but I believe 32gb is probably safe at this point.

[@GeorgeVCohea-dw7ou]

@@MultipleObjectSelector Yeah, you are right. Schemers will still pull quite a bit for a buck, but this isn't that. kzbin.info/www/bejne/sIPEnHSrfbaaq9E It would also be ridiculously risky for a company to screw with customers over an item that likely costs them under £2, when inclusion is technically optional.

[@Jhud69]

I genuinely love these, I have one - the Peripage bear one. Gimmicky and definitely not lasting forever? Sure, but for very quick and dirty scrapbooking, labeling, or just when you're unable to write (I often use mine to write in my journal, as I like to have a physical journal, but due to a disability I can't handwrite too well) they're great. Photos printed on them also have their own charm.

[@treelineresearch3387]

"Send screenshot to toy bluetooth thermal printer" would be a fantastically useful feature for a lot of test equipment.

[@MLX1401]

Yes, shame the printer only had BT and no HP-IB or even a centronics port!

[@MazeFrame]

GPIB Thermal Printer would be great, yeah.

[@gabotron94]

Before we know it, someone will have reverse engineered the protocol the hard way and will get posted on Hackaday

[@megazenn22]

You can get an even better print quality from the PeriPage if you plug it in, it doesnt get quite enough juice from the built in battery :)

[@tomf3150]

Makes sense. Back in the 90" I had (still have it somewhere) the I.R thermal printer by HP and even with 4 fresh AA batteries it was recommended to use an external supply.

[@xlmao]

I have a bigger peripage and it can print directly from your PC with their drivers (found online)

[@megazenn22]

@@xlmao cool! which models is that? does it work with linux?

[@xlmao]

@@megazenn22 PeriPage A9s MAX, dont really know tried in windows

[@hjalfi]

I have an 80s-era thermal dot matrix printer and it took me ages to make it work properly, because I didn't realise it draws 3A. Those thermal print heads are really not cheap.

[@bjwoodruff]

8:03 seeing your frowning facing coming out of that camera was hilarious.

[@CrashPilot1000]

He looks like a Wrestler!

[@trevorbartels1730]

Those pictures remind me of my pin hole camera experiments 40+ years ago!

[@isegrim1978]

Why did my mind instantly wander over to "self printed parking tickets"... Something that no one should try...

[@SyntheticFuture]

Good luck with modern parking meters that actually work with license plate registration where they check your license plate vs their database of bought tickets. But with old skool meters... Could work... 👀

[@ronbokje6213]

There was a Dutch site where you was able to print every parking ticket. Worked fine

[@isegrim1978]

@@ronbokje6213 interesting. How did the authorities react to that?

[@isegrim1978]

@@SyntheticFuture i have jet to come across one of the new parking meters.

[@willblack7353]

I see an opportunity for trolling... One that I will turn down, as I appreciate not being in prison.

[@NandR]

I was waiting for this video. I don't know why I'm fascinated with these printers, but I'm gonna pick one up, use it once, and hopefully use it some more. Your channel has me buying all kinds of junk I don't need.

[@veemod9635]

Next up is the old, slightly used vibrator video

[@blueredbrick]

Send it to BigClive on Isle of Man :)

[@TheRealColBosch]

Honestly, I can see getting the PeriPage for parties, as just a fun little thing.

[@keiralionel]

what are the updates

[@Super1337357]

A child's toy comes with 32gb of storage... I remember when professional cameras came with 1gb. It's amazing how things change.

[@meowmocha12]

I have a digital camera that uses SD cards. I think all my cards have a 4 GB capacity. 😂

[@enveeed]

08:48 I didn't know I needed these images in my life, thank you, I can't stop laughing now

[@lmggmr3699]

Same

[@karl-heinzruttimann8133]

@@lmggmr3699 same

[@frankowalker4662]

I've had to pause the video. I've got tears streaming down my face. LOL.

[@nslouka90]

Mat chungus

[@victoriaevelyn3953]

thiccmoan

[@jonathansabinvarietyfilms]

'No tripod socket, might not want to use for wedding videos' - Darn, just ruined all my plans

[@mattsword41]

Love the Mat On Tat series!! A lovely gentle, humorous stroll around things that might be good, but aren't :)

[@Gappasaurus]

Never let it be said that Mat doesn’t thoroughly chase down each and every rabbit hole he ventures into 😄

[@chuckdaddyfanfics]

My therapist: TechmomhceT isn't real, he can't hurt you. TechmomhceT: 8:48

[@Not-THAT-ChrisPratt]

Oh, he's real, he's VERY REAL! O.O

[@TheNasaDude]

Egghead 100

[@AWJR]

I wonder if he cares about the joj

[@HUNDOLOS]

"Ah-ah-aah, you didn't say the magic word!"

[@benji.B-side]

The picture at 11:15 has a 'Man Wanted For Breaking into Cash Machines' quality about it.

[@kennymcornmick]

I've had a PeriPage for about a year. Fantastic little thing. I use it mostly for printing postage labels (they need a little bit of re-arranging to make the barcode take up the full width) but not had an issue so far!

[@SobrietyandSolace]

I also use it for postage labels

[@megazenn22]

when i first got the PeriPage, the app was so bad! almost nothing worked right first time, but they fixed it all now :)

[@randomreviews9016]

Same here, that's why I stopped using it. Will try it right now because I bought a lot of different papers including sticker ones !

[@paulstubbs7678]

You mean they've sold more than one (to techmoan) Wow

[@megazenn22]

@@paulstubbs7678 its a great product, whats your problem with it?

[@lukereeves4448]

Does it still require an internet and GPS connection to work?

[@megazenn22]

@@lukereeves4448 just tried it without internet and gps and it works fine

[@300DBenz]

“...enjoy little happiness.” Oh, I’ve been doing that for many years.

[@gryfandjane]

My first serious computer was a Macintosh SE with the black and white screen. I was actually fascinated with the dithering patterns generated in photos, game imagery, etc. Yeah, I’m easily amused… but it was sort of fun to see similar dithering in these thermal prints. Took me back a few years!

[@surrodox]

Nice to see someone shines more light on these thermal printers! They always fascinates me.

[@discorduk]

Note that you can also put stickers in these printers. There are some continuous roll sticker paper you can get, but i also managed to find some discrete removable (non-permanent glue) stickers that work so i use it to print date and description labels for food storage boxes

[@veryblocky]

The blue one has some charm to it, I like the dithering effect.

[@firescoob999]

09:57 ;-) Taken off our bridge LOL. Love it Matt. Bit of a rough time since last meet.....will send comms over w/e.

[@fdsman]

I remember the tech predictions of the future back 15-20 years ago thought every PDA would have a thermal printer built-in so you could print out airline boarding passes. I guess this is a modern take on that concept in a way.

[@GTcroove]

8:48 Techmoan really gets his JoJ done!

[@stalkedbycats7366]

"Print you like, enjoy little happiness" Buddy, I've been there.

[@baileyanderson6824]

My life as a screen printer at a crappy membrane circuit factory

[@yadt]

I ♥️ deep

[@goodnewseveryone2583]

I love the fact that he printed out a freeze frame from stargate. Nobody knows what stargate is and techmoan referencing it made me very happy.

[@DasGanon]

Indeed. (Wait, wrong Stargate)

[@goodnewseveryone2583]

@@DasGanon Nice

[@Connie_TinuityError]

@@DasGanon more like indeed so, most indeededly

[@KaWouter_]

Thanks for demonstrating those two cameras and to give us a glimpse of the 'behind the scene's' with that selfie shot through the pink camera.

[@Angellmbrr]

"Mat on Tat"... I would watch that second channel if you ever create one!!! Ashens would be proud.

[@iamsandwich]

Actually got myself a camera, and it seems like the dithering also depends on the kind of paper you're using. I got about 4-5 different kinds of rolls with various thicknesses and surfaces and they all look completely different. The smoother the paper, usually anyways, the more pigment they've put in, meaning the resolution of the image will be better, and dark parts will be darker and the overall quality of the image will be higher. You can get some really neat details in there. Alternatively the paper that looks bumpy under a phone flashlight will prove to create dithering prints, which in turn look more stylized and are great for a more oldschool/creepy sort of aesthetic where contrast can give you some nice result. Also the printing element reheats quickly, depending on the paper too. The bumpy paper gives bad results after about 2-3 images, while the smoother kinds give that at about 5-7 prints.

[@thysonsacclaim]

"Mom! Mr Techmoan changed his intro again!" Love it. Great work. Thanks for the upload.

[@mr.berlingo8211]

I got a Peripage A6 printer having watched this video, I feel it is a fair review, one aspect not explored is that a Windows driver is available on the Peripage website, this works with a USB connection to the printer. Options in the driver are very limited, halftoning can be set to two sizes of dots, super cell or auto, orientation, pages per sheet (!) and paper size (roll width x length or height of A4, or 3.276 metres!). Printing works, but the paper stops when the print stops and is not ejected up to the cutter bar. Still, a useful alternative to printing via the app.

[@Gary85Paul]

I had a printer like this on a Gameboy in the 1990s! Very similar quality, getting on for 30 years ago.

[@franziskapala8723]

And oooomg, I love the video. 😂 Back to the 90s! Giving me nostalgia. 😁

[@nvrndingsmmr]

These are incredibly charming, and the photographs can actually turn out looking kind of dark and atmospheric if you're lucky! Cool!

[@rozalinenelhams8307]

I love the greyscales. pics arnt great but for me its perfect to do old style photos.

[@andrewness]

Was given one of these as a gift, it's great fun. I particularly liked the phrase "Enjoy little happiness!" emblazoned on the box. Probably not quite what they meant.

[@GeekyGarden]

I have a spare networked point of sale printer at my desk. It is super handy for printing To-Do list from the MS To-Do app, quick notes from note pad, and even address labels to be stuck on with clear packing tape.

[@KerrPlayer]

I actually use one of these to print postal labels. Works great! And printed a few pictures. It's a fun novelty.

[@Five-O_Reviews]

I ship alot of items I sell through ebay via Pirateship, and I've been looking for a cheap B/W thermal printer for my labels. But I have been limited because of the small print size of low cost thermal printers, but the first one you shown allows the picture to be split into sections!!! Perfect for my needs! Thanks!!! From Mississippi USA.

[@elvinhaak]

The nicest feature of the first one is the bannerprinting..... at least it seemed. I taped it on boxes to find a day later that the text was almost vanished. Older thermalprinters I have used had no problem with packaging or celo-tape so this was some bit disapointing.... Photo's... can be nice as a kind of label to remind you what is in a box or cupboard - they don't need that much detail for that.

[@TehBIGrat]

That adhesive tag on the screen may have been left over from manufacturing, and not necessarily them cutting corners.

[@batteriesrequired9401]

Definitely buying the insta camera for my little girl. I'll no doubt be buying roll after roll of paper during the summer hols. Great video, good review.

[@Weezy4reezy]

I quite like the dithering on the prints. I would consider the one with the camera, but the ears would have to go haha

[@goeland4585]

"Cut the ears!" was also my first reaction to seeing that thing 😁

[@the_original_Bilb_Ono]

The ears are an integral part of the camera. You cut them off and the thing never works right again.

[@h.five.e]

These look really fun! I really like the grayscale effect, too bad you have to go through so many steps to get a decent quality print. The bt one should just come with that capability 😄

[@Sashazur]

The first printer I got for my TRS-80 was a little silver Radio Shack thermal printer! It printed on register paper (back then the paper was narrower).

[@mark-andrews]

Glad you mentioned that these prints don't last forever, during summertime a thermally printed weekly bus ticket can be obliterated in less than a week!

[@ging3rdragon]

I have used my printer to make huge birthday banners, christmas cards even use the print outs as templates for my wood carving figurines

[@meanwhile_0]

11:14 looks like the album cover of some British Death Industrial release from the 1980s.

[@Monkeyshaman]

😄 I really liked the camera printer combo

[@mariahamilton5305]

Sounds handy for travel, print out boarding pass stuff etc as a backup in case phone conks out at the wrong time. Also eBay / post labels

[@reflexnight]

I can see some use for the quick b&w print out at things like cons for badges and the like short term use and the speed of printing is good as well.

[@beautyforashes2022]

I like the dithered effect as well. It's sharper without looking harsh, and just more detailed and defined. Where as the prints out of the pink camera, whatever style that is, tends to look kind of muddy and washed out in the lighter areas.

[@techbaffle]

To be fair, I was quite impressed with the Toy Camera. The prints look detailed and wasn't expecting much from the camera itself. I think for a toy it's not bad and at least you don't need an app to use it.

[@oafkad]

There is something charming about footage from a cheap camera. The weird visual quirks end up adding this extra level of mysticism to whatever is filmed.

[@georgecunningham9175]

For someone who's tech requirements have barely passed the "flip-phone" stage, I know more about current and passed tech than I have a right (or need) to. I wonder why that is..........................I guess I can chalk it up to the enjoyable way I spend my Saturday mornings - with Me Mate Mat and the intriguing world world of all things that plug into a power socket. Thanks for that - both the knowledge and the entertainment. PS - I am partial to the prints from the first gizmo as well - there is a certain "vintage" charm to them.

[@weegerri1sm]

8:54 That sound! I felt like I was under water! 😂

[@TheAruruu]

I'm genuinely impressed by just how sharp the dithered B&W printed pictures look compared to the gray scale pictures. it's a shame the camera didn't use the same dithered printer. The pictures would have probably looked better.

[@revidual]

The blank expressions remind me of the camera booth repair man who abandoned his test photos in the French film 'Amelie' from 2001.

[@AtheistOrphan]

Yes! Great film.

[@manonthedollar]

That first picture of you printed on the thermal paper is... quite attractive I must say.

[@VieVentar]

*Tabletop RPG DM senses tingling* I have so many ideas for unique things to do with that mini printer...

[@DesDiamondS]

The first one is my fave out of the two. It has a certain charm

[@lahuk1194]

The camera prints look like they're early photos from the late 1800's, its a cool look honestly

[@matthell6719]

I bought one right away... These things are super cool.

[@AtheistOrphan]

I’m reminded of the Sinclair MicroPrinter (or whatever it was called).

[@plzletmebefrank]

This is actually a really neat idea. I like it.

[@TheFlyingScotsmanTV]

I got one ordered and delivered same day after viewing Matt. If only to relive my ZX spectrum thermal printer days. And it's the same price as I remember my (alphacom?) back in 1985. :-)

[@alloria]

I still think Techmoan should open a museum. You could display these things alongside all the obscure audio formats you have covered.

[@SasquachPL]

I actually love the pink one's dark-lomo-lofi gothesque style. The look of the pictures really contrasts the look of the camera itself, and I love that too. Actually thinking of buying one for myself, though they definitely should rate it PG or something.. kinda depressive haha

[@richardbanks2669]

Started looking at these on eBay after your excellent video printer video and not finding one of those for less than £100, thanks for this, exactly what I needed :)

[@haraldschiner6837]

11:49 Gorgeous Black Metal Album artwork ;-)

[@smonster]

Even though it is for kids I think it would be very cool as a toy for people who work in the modelling industry to take some "alternative" kinds of photos. Sometimes old and limiting things can be used in a very creative way. This is very cool! Would love to see more videos with filmic looking cameras like these! :)

[@rcxb1]

I like how the camera's video mode turns you into a Fremen. The spice must flow!

[@GetBant]

Bring back the puppets!

[@moonshine3333]

Mat can't... look up COPPA for the reason.

[@JSchaffer214]

@@moonshine3333 He should post his videos on Rumble or somewhere similar and add the puppets as incentive to go there. KZbin is slowly dying anyway.

[@pogostix6097]

YASSSS STARGATE Man, if I had one of these things I'd probably just take 8 million pictures of my dog. I do love my dog. Or I could use it to print out my Pokemon Boxes like I never could in the 90's lol. Print a screengrab from the Switch.

[@hadireg]

thanks Matt! was thinking about printing qr codes... so there we go! 👍

[@R33Racer]

I really like the dithered effect too. Reminds me of the old 80s/early 90s Apple Macintoshes.

[@tonyshaw13]

I have had a few of those mini printers, and the DPI on the cheaper end ones is 200-ish DPI, and 300-ish DPI, I will say that the 300 DPI ones are way way better, I also have a Phomemo M04S 4 inch thermal printer, which is at 300 DPI and it's can print from Windows/Linux/Android/IPhone, the quality is the best it can get

[@mr.berlingo8211]

The Peripage A6 is available in two different DPI, 204 or 304

[@RCshockwave]

Remind me the GameBoy Camera and it's printer , that nostalgia ...

[@briangoldberg4439]

That was fun. Hope you find and show off more of these!

[@Meoiswa]

I'm very interested in finding out if the dithering is happening at the smartphone app, or at the printer. If someone were to reverse-engineer the bluetooth printer, it might be possible to get the best of both worlds!

[@iamdarkyoshi]

That thing's camera was actually way better than I expected. Ashen's aliexpress camcorder video is more what I expected

[@ShadowWizard123]

I would love to see a new sketch with your puppets some day. When inspiration strikes you.

[@shiva_MMIV]

If he puts puppets on a video KZbin consider it as a video for children and with that comes a whole lot of new rules, many of them incompatible with how the channel runs.

[@ShadowWizard123]

@@shiva_MMIV is that why he stopped? I never knew that. Thanks for telling me

[@reggiep75]

As a big fan of all things that are charmingly lo-fi, these cameras are great and the 'quality' reminds me of 90's PC hand scanner images that were equally good.

[@zarrg5611]

An instant camera that uses thermal paper is very attractive to me, I will have to consider this. The print quality might be able to be worked with - it might be possible a 'Moriyama' style if you know what you're doing, but I am unsure.

[@megazenn22]

I use the PeriPage to print my sticky shipping labels, its perfect for that! :)

[@isegrim1978]

That was my first thought.

[@darknes4150]

yeah i got a paperang p2 a few years ago and recently started shipping things and was pretty surprised the post office would take the labels it printed despite them being too small

[@g-r-a-e-m-e-]

Sticky?

[@megazenn22]

@@darknes4150 print in bold :)

[@megazenn22]

@@g-r-a-e-m-e- it prints peel off sticker paper

[@beez1717]

I like the look of the dithered images because they are sharp and show lots of detail.

[@seany84uk]

The peripage one isnt too bad i bought it for my daughter. Its a cheap alternative to the colour instant printers. You can get one off ebay for about £40 with a few rolls of paper too.

[@markmarkofkane8167]

Interesting. Didn't know about those. Years ago, I dreamed about animated photographs. That tape recorder reminded me of that dream.

[@Sponge1310]

The dithering of the printer gives it a bit of a artsy look while still making for a decently clear picture, while the other one gives crappy print outs taken with a crappy camera and slightly less crappy print outs of pictures taken with a good camera… I guess it’s a case of if you put crap in, crap comes out.

[@padraigwastaken]

One thing I think you missed that is important is that the quality of paper used can have a massive impact. On my Paperang printer (which seems very similar to the Peripage) the paper that came with it wasn't great, the first set of sticker labels I bought online were terrible, but the "10 year" label paper I got for only slightly more lasted absolutely ages. Done a test where I put some sticky tape on top of all three types with the one photo, the photo had 90% faded on the worst one within a day and hadn't faded at all after several weeks with the good paper. Purely from looking at these images it wouldn't surprise me if the dithered style lasts longer than the greyscale too. Just looks like it'd fade into incoherency a lot faster.

[@Steve-GM0HUU]

A small budget decent quality (even just BW/greyscale) easy to use printer can be a useful thing which makes the blue one kind of interesting. Of the two, I tend towards dithered.

[@sliob]

Off topic: BPA and BPS found in abundance on the surface of thermal paper is easily absobed and toxicity is established. Yet here it is in a toy. Enjoyed the video, as always!

[@surfinbirdzx]

Great idea. Cheap polaroid for kids. I'll wait for the better version and will definitely buy one for my kids... Or for myself:)