xPrintServer Network Edition

I purchased the xPrintServer in order to allow my iOS devices to print to my Xerox color laser printer. My Xerox printer is wonderful, fast, already on my network, and really inexpensive from a price-per-page perspective. Only problem is that it doesn't have an option for AirPrint, hence the need for the xPrintServer.After checking software and hardware solutions, I decided on the Lantronix xPrintServer. It's a small device about the size of an iPhone, and unlike software solutions, I don't need to keep a computer running in order to print from my iOS devices.I installed the xPrintServer on my Verizon FiOS ActionTec router, and immediately ran into three problems.First, the printer I wanted to use wasn't discovered by the xPrintServer, even though it's on my Ethernet network. But before I could manually configure it, I needed to connect my browser to the xPrintServer - since it's DHCP, it took a bit of digging to figure out the IP address needed to connect to my server. In fairness, Lantronix operates a website that the xPrintServer registers with...given a serial number, I can go to the site and lookup the IP address. Of course, the serial number is only on the small tag on the xPrintServer itself, so in the end, I found it easier to use my routers status pages to figure out the IP address.This brings me to problem two: the questionable practice of the xPrintServer doing some sort of "call home" to register with the Lantronix website. I'm always squeamish about a device communicating to the Internet - no idea what it's doing, and no idea how secure it is. For all I know, the Lantronix might have sent all sorts of configuration data from my home network and computers to Lantronix, and it may have even opened all sorts of security holes without my knowledge or permission. If you're concerned about security, I'd recommend blocking the device from communicating outside your home network.Once I was connected to the xPrintServer, I was indeed able to manually register my printer. Strangely, the xPrintServer seemed to discover my Xerox printer, but it didn't automatically add it to the configuration. Apparently, the xPrintServer does an SNMP sweep of every possible device, and it showed my Xerox printer as being found, so I'm not sure what was going on there. The good news is that it only took a few moments to configure my printer manually and I was up and running.The third problem really isn't the fault of the xPrintServer, but I thought I'd mention it anyway should anyone else run into the same thing. I use the Verizon Actiontec router, with the xPrintServer plugged into a free Ethernet port. Much to my surprise, I found that my iPad, connected to the wireless side of the same router, couldn't connect to the xPrintServer...no matter what I tried, I got "No AirPrint devices found". The Actiontec configuration showed the wired and wireless networks were bridged, and I had some other apps that could talk fine from the wireless to wired networks, so I was stumped.After considerable research, I found the problem was the Actiontec's IGMP protocol. For whatever reason, with IGMP enabled, the bridge between wireless and wired on my Actiontec router wouldn't work reliably. The solution was to disable IGMP, and once I did - no more problems.Other than these setup problems, I'm generally happy with the Lantronix device. Output prints properly, and it supports my printer's features such as 2-sided printing. I can use it from multiple devices at once with no problems. Best of all, for a relatively modest price, I get to use my existing high quality printer.I'd generally recommend the Lantronix, assuming you have the technical wherewithal to work through the sorts of problems I ran into.

I purchased the Lantronix xPrintServer Home Edition AND the Enterprise Edition as part of a project to enable simple iOS device printing.The Home Edition performed exactly as advertised. Plug it in, give a minute or two to scan for your printers...then start using it. It was truly that simple and works great.Just tap the "Print" button in your app, and your printer(s) will appear in the list. Aside from "Duplex On/Off" you do NOT have control over printer options such as paper tray selection, etc. from the print dialog. It will print with the settings that are resident on the printer.We installed the Enterprise Edition at work. Unfortunately, this did not work out as well. Our office has several enterprise class MFP printers. Specifically Ricoh MP5500's and Ricoh C2500's as well as many HP consumer grade printers. The Ricoh's are where we would desire all iOS printing to arrive whereas the HPs are in the warehouse.Although the Enterprise Edition discovered all of the printers, it could only print successfully to the HPs and (for some reason) the Ricoh C2500. The MP5500's print garbage and all black pages when attempted from an iOS device. Since the xPrintServer device is not at all configurable, this won't work out for us in the office. We have contacted the manufacturer to see if they will make improvements to make this printer series compatible. THEN I will consider installing one at each of our branches. Until then...no go! If you have printers that it recognizes properly with drivers, you'll love the convenience of this device as well.Coming back to the Home Edition, I think it's a great device that has appropriate driver compatibility with many consumer grade printers. It's easy to install and delivers exactly what was claimed. I recommend this device to anybody wanting to finally print from an iPhone, iPod, iPad without having to set up a dedicated Print Server on a workstation.Amazon, as always, processed the order quickly, maintained good update communications, and delivered on time.One technical note for those interested...The instructions indicate you have to plug the device into a "router" to get it to work. They are over generalizing. This works just fine if it's hanging off a network switch or even an open network wall port.