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WPS Pro @ v3 and AirPrint?

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 4:39 pm
by calzone
I have a WPS Pro w/ DNP printer.

For a few years now, I've been using an ethernet —to—> WiFi dongle on it. That's the only way I know that I can connect the printer to the same wireless network as the iPad and the Canon 80D. (Wired networks are just not an option at events).

I just discovered DNP has updated their WPS firmware to v3 and they say it supports AirPrint. Unfortunately, it seems they still don't support having the WPS join a wireless network.

For events where there will only be printing of photos and no texting or other "cloud" type activity, it's tempting to upgrade to their v3 and simply connect the iPad and camera to it. Saves the trouble of having an extra dongle and seems likely to perform better / more reliably.

I'm afraid to update the WPS however, because I know that Wifibooth connects to DNP printers using a special protocol (as opposed to AirPrint).

Question 1)

Does Wifibooth support printing to a DNP printer over AirPrint (using v3 of WPS firmware which supports natively printing over AirPrint from other iOS apps)

Question 2)

I saw that the latest version of Wifibooth now supports a wired connection to the Canon (I'm using a gen 1 iPad Pro, if it matters).

I'm guessing this would greatly increase performance and reliability. The downside is how to charge the iPad if it's wired to a camera… how long could I expect, with Wifibooth running continuously, this setup to work before battery power becomes a concern?

In this scenario, I assume/hope the iPad can still connect over WiFi to the WPS? (Also hoping AirPrint / WPS v3 would still work in this config).

Question 3)

Other than using an ethernet dongle on the WPS unit, can you suggest any other way I could combine an iPad, Canon 80D, and a DNP printer — and ALSO support internet access from the iPad (for texting, cloud, access from other devices without requiring them to join the dead-end WPS custom network), etc).

Thank you!

Re: WPS Pro @ v3 and AirPrint?

Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 4:58 pm
by tim
Good questions, happy to try to help.
We don't have a WPS unit available to us currently to test v3 firmware, but we can ask questions to DNP as we need to (we have the contact info for the WPS product manager, and DNP in general is a great company to work with)

1) Wifibooth supports AirPrint, so if the v3 firmware supports true airprint, it will work. The whole point of airprint is that it is a standard, so I fully expect this would work (wired or wireless). Note wifibooth supports 2 "kinds" of airprint: headless (normal) meaning no popup every time, and manual/UI shown every time for "fake" airprint support (many software packages on PC claim to emulate AirPrint support but they're just gutenberg/CUPS server and that's not enough for real airprint support; in iOS 13 timeframe these stopped working, but many people still use them so we added support for manual/UI airprint printing to keep them working)

2) Correct, wired Canon support is fast & more reliable than wifi (although your 80D is literally the best wifi reliability for any camera we've ever tested!). Yes, you can charge your iPad at the same time: you want the official Apple camera adapter. Link (to canadian store but you can see what product it is): https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/product/M ... ra-adapter
Yes, when wired to the camera, the iPad can still use wifi to connect to other networks and this works as you'd hope.

3) Yes, I can tell you the setup I used to use some years ago when I personally ran photo booths with the WPS PRO v1:
- DLink DIR-505 "plug" style router - has wifi + ethernet (can bridge)
- WPS Pro using ethernet/wired connection to DIR-505
- my iPhone with personal hotspot on, DIR-505 acting as client to iPhone, sharing internet out its ethernet port
- iPad using wifi, also connected to my iPhone hotspot... this would also allow wired/usb connection to your canon (sadly this wasn't possible in my time!)

You don't need to get the DIR-505 specifically, but any plug-style small router that can be a "client" in the way described above will work. The key is that it's bridging the WPS Pro wired connection to wifi, and connects to a wifi router that is providing internet access AND has the ipad connected as well.
The main reason I went this route: the v1 WPS Pro had really poor unreliable wifi that dropped all the time, so the only alternative was to use the WPS Pro's ethernet port.

Hope this helps!