On the technology side, I'm somewhat hopeful because it looks like they're using off-the-shelf HP ink cartridges for this. HP cartridges embed the printhead into the cartridge itself, and that printhead is arguably the most complicated part of the entire device. Outsource the printhead, and you're just designing a plotter with a PCL interface.

I agree that the bigger challenge is going to be patents.

It also wouldn't surprise me to see HP add DRM to cartridges to authenticate the printer itself if this catches on. (Possibly requiring a printer driver/firmware update.)

> I agree that the bigger challenge is going to be patents.

Surely most/all of the patents around the actual inkjet printing function have expired though, right? I had inkjet printers in the mid 00s and if anything I feel like your average inkjet is worse these days.

Maybe they should have purchased a design from Canon or someone that isn't really in this market anymore. It seems like not only are they locked into a specific older technology generation (which could be ok idk) but they also risk HP just discontinuing that cartridge. It seems like the printers for this cartridge were released around late 2017 so they could deprecate earlier than they normally do. Seems like they provide 10-20 years typically. At the same time , maybe this is just meant for a small user base of nerds and maybe HP wont care.

I don’t see why HP would want to do that. They have huge margins on ink, right? I’m sure the increase in cartridge sales would offset lost subscription revenue from useless cloud services, if only because the people who are gonna use an open source printer would never pay for that anyway.