WiX Restaurants/ Auto Order Print / Accessibility

I bought the Epson tm30 and star micronics TSP 654. Both are WiFi and Bluetooth capable. Additionally, the star has the ability to AirPrint via iOS and also has the a ‘CLOUDPRT’ and WEBPRINT’ feature, not sure what these latter ones do yet. The star is a highly sophisticated device, it appears to be the gold standard of receipt printers. As you might be aware, there is three ways to print. (1) via google cloud print, and (2A) & (2B), which are thru the mobile app and options are able to be setup as via network (WiFi) or Bluetooth, respectively. I only tested WiFi for both models thus far. Keep in mind now that I’m also testing 2 systems- I use WiX R and Global Food. Unfortunately, the results for WiX R were somewhat disappointing. First, it does not even recognize the Epson from the app. However, the Star, it works as expected via the app printing, but read on. Now, the GCP - I was able to setup the Epson as a classic GC Printer, keep a Win10 laptop on (it needs the drivers loaded to the PC and the driver loaded to translate a classic printer thru GCP), and then setup the auto print in WiX. It printed, with lackluster output. The output text was so small you can barely read it. I haven’t yet tested the Star with GCP but I’d expect to have to do same process and I’d assume I’d get similar results. Why, because WiX R’s printout is extremely not well thought out, it tremendously lags the competition’s output format results. I couldn’t believe that this here that I show is what WiX R pushes to a printer. See first image shown here. It’s from the Star printer printed from the WiX R app. For comparison, look at the 2nd example, it’s what even the lesser Epson produces from the Global Foods order app. The WiX R output and missing receipt editing abilities is LIGHT YEARS behind the competition- I would love to hear that this is not how the WiX R output should look , but based on my experience with using WiX’s Restaurants ecosystem for online ordering and some shortcomings, I’m afraid it probably is what I should expect. It looks like a scaled down unresponsive/non- mobile version of the output, which I’ve proven on 8.5x11 regular printer looks ok. This was a sad finding. :pensive:. This is not how a receipt should look at all. I’d love to hear I’m doing something wrong.

Just to note the printout from WiX r that I show again is from the star 654, printing from the app not via GCP: prints on 2 pages and half of the printout is cutoff. I don’t even show the tiny GCP from the Epson (which worked!) but the print was so tiny you wouldn’t even be able to see it.

The Star 654 via GCP is still on my plate to test. But I’m afraid it won’t be to my or my clients acceptance.

For starters, if it looks anything like how the app printed the output on the star 654 from the app printing, then it’s not worth it. Second, the star 654 is not GCP capable as far as I know (still testing), so it would likely require a driver and laptop supplement to do the work acting as a classic GC printer. Not acceptable for my client. It’s 2020, we need things to work like 2020. This is not a WiX limitation in this case btw, it’s the printer capability limitation. Third, GCP is going away. I have no idea what WiX will present as the solution for the GCP deprecating, so who knows in 3 months what I will be up against. :thinking:

Thank you for your feedback, I’ll forward it to our Wix restaurants team. Should I hear back, I will provide you with an update.

Thanks Steve. I have some other possible good news. I did some R&D and found that the Star Micronics has a feature called CloudPRNT. What this does is takes an apps output via the API using the JSON format, and delivers the order details directly to the Star Micronics printer. The talked about SM TSP 654II that we know works from the WiX mobile app has this feature, and is supported by the integrator. I should be working with them soon. What that means is that if I get it to works, it seems like I might be able to format the order output by retrieving WiX’s API JSON data, and format the order with perhaps an integrator pre-established template. This would be really exciting for me and my clients because I’m sorry, but WiX R’s order print output looks PITIFUL.

But I would want to hear WiX development is correcting the output situ as well :+1:

@bill17635 thanks for the update. Keep us posted.

@sheyla [@Steven]

I made a contact with a Star Micronics rep on a zoom meeting to discusss integrate at with Star Micronics CloudPRNT technology. This would be a big leap forward to get your product team talking to them about it’s features.

Considering all of your competition who are partnered with this program, and the superior printing and receipt format of your competition - I thought you would definitely have interest.

It will allow your app to print to the cloud and direct the printout on any printer on any network, similar to Google Cloud Print technology. This would be advantageous to offer this ability.

What would also be advantageous would be to format your receipts better too.

How can I share the reps contact info with you privately- I don’t want to share that publicly here.

@steven see attached

[@Steven] I’m stuck, do you think I should go to email partner support to address the formatting issue on the Star 654? This has nothing to do with cloud printing at the moment instead it has to do with the mobile app and the printer shown that is supported and the way it prints out on the printer which is cut off

[@Steven] I’m stuck, do you think I should go to email partner support to address the formatting issue on the Star 654? This has nothing to do with cloud printing at the moment instead it has to do with the mobile app and the printer shown that is supported and the way it prints out on the printer which is cut off. Meaning, what is offered and supported at this current time is not working at all, format/size wise.

You still trying set up the printer? I’m trying set up now but I have no idea how start set it! I downloaded a bunch of apps on my iphone but nothing works! Could give me an idea how to start set?

@bill17635 definitely connect with our customer care team - they should be able to help you out :slight_smile:

@guaranimedia Hi! You may want to start here .

@Sheyla do you have any response to my issue about the output? It just doesnt print in the format expected on the TSP 654 printer that is supported by the app. Half of the printout gets truncated on an 80mm receipt

The 654 is not GCP compatible as far as I know. This is why I’m asking here about the GCP replacement to see if that will be more robust in the way things auto-print.

The Star Micronics 654 has a built in cloud printing technology called ‘CloudPRNT’ , its free to use and develop out of the box, but the back-end servers on WiX must support RESTful API’s in JSON format and the API must be publicly accessible and the print protocol must be implemented for my developers to implement the SDK code to push the order automaticallyto the SM 654 printer.

If you don’t understand above then know this: I only tested the 654 output by printing to it manually from the app. That output and format was not very professional or impressive looking, so because of this one issue I might need to use an alternative system until I can learn what will resolve it.

I bought the TSP 654 printer and he come with a WiFi Dongle, i connect this WiFi Dongle on the back usb port and nothing happen, no light turning on. Could somebody told me what’s suppose to do to connect the printer on my same wifi network and then to pair with my Wix app? Thanks!