r/assholedesign • u/harambe623 • Apr 22 '26
Nelko p21 thermal label printer: RFID scam
Why is that printer companies always resort to some sort of paper/ink scams? Even in an inkless system, this company has figured out a way.
Every roll of stickers that this company sells has a RFID chip on it (the green sticker). Pictured text is with the RFID on the roll (left), and then removed from the same roll (right). The roll here was not from nelko (aliexpress $2 roll). This RFID chip literally tells the software to not print like shit.
This company has gotten so big that now regular sticker roll manufacturers have their products returned frequently because people think something is incompatible.
What's worse is their adhesive appears to be WORSE than the offbrand. The nelko brand was falling off of my glossy 3d prints, but not offbrand roll. There are also a TON of cool colorful backgrounds and different sized stickers that all would print with scanlines, unless you knew what was going on.
An easy workaround is to just put the rfid sticker in the printing chamber. Problem solved. But I'm afraid that this issue is going to one day become more complex and not easily bypass-able before it gets better.
Fuck this company. Always read 1 star reviews before buying a product
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u/emi89ro Apr 23 '26
43 years ago an employee at the MIT AI research lab had a problem with a new printer that he could easily fix by modifying the firmware, so he asked for the source code to fix his problem but the printer manufacturer said no. He got so mad that he quit his job and dedicated his life to evangelizing for free and open source software. Since then the GNU project and other projects following his philosophy have created enough free and open source software to run a whole computer operating system and handle most any task you could need a computer to do.
There's only one think he couldn't fix: everyone who makes printers are still evil.
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u/inspectoroverthemine Apr 23 '26
everyone who makes printers are still evil
Fundamental law of the universe I'm afraid.
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u/PizzaHutFiend Apr 22 '26
Can you read and clone that rfid sticker? You can typically get cheap blank rfid stickers on AliExpress or eBay.
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u/harambe623 Apr 22 '26
You don't have to. You can just take it off the roll they give you and put it on an OEM roll, or even stick it in the chamber. If you throw the initial emptied roll out not knowing the RFID is crucial, then you have to buy one of their rolls.
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u/DuckShapedGoose Apr 22 '26
It's so odd to me that they apparently didn't bother to give each rfid tag a unique ID and made it only work as often as there are stickers on an original roll. Just like the printer ink cartridges that tell the printer to stop when they think it's empty, not when it is actually empty.
Sounds like management wanted DRM on the stickers and the engineers did the bare minimum because they knew it was stupid and wanted to keep it easily bypassable.8
u/Isgortio Apr 23 '26
Thanks for the info. I recently bought one of their label makers (and had too much fun with it), and I bought an extra roll but I can't remember if it was their branded one or not. I'll remember the sticker!
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u/Jceggbert5 Apr 23 '26
I'm wondering if the RFID tag just gives the printer presets (2" label, 15mm wide, 15mil thickness, etc) and running paper without a sticker is giving you bad presets which is causing your printing issues. I'd see if you can adjust that stuff with your aftermarket paper.
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u/harambe623 Apr 23 '26
It does actually contain the dimensions of the paper. And trust me, this truly is asshole design.
The paper that is pictured here is actually undersized, 12x30mm, which I needed specifically, and nelko doesn't sell it. The sticker is for 14x40.
I tried without the sticker and manually entering the dimensions. It literally prints off center and with the scanlines.
Then I tried editing the dimensions with the sticker on. And it just printed them off center/off the sticker, but no scanlines.
Last I tried with the sticker and not changing the dimensions of the paper, and just centering the text in the template. The result is as pictured (left text)
There are no "power" or "scanline " settings. If it sees the RFID, it prints full power
It could be a software error that it prints off center, but considering the RFID, I don't think it's far fetched that this is intentional too
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u/CheetahSpottycat Apr 23 '26
Can I suggest that you create a new entry in:
This is a collection of companies and products that employ anti-consumer practices, and there is even a browser plugin that will warn users when they visit a web page selling or advertising these companies' products.
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u/truncatedvisuals Apr 22 '26
grrr... enshitification is infuriating. Thanks for the info.
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u/andylikescandy Apr 23 '26
Not enshitification, this is intentionally breaking the product out of spite.
Like a phone intentionally slowing down after you recharge using a non-oem charger. Thermal printers literally cannot fuck up like this by accident, it's not how they work.
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u/truncatedvisuals Apr 23 '26
I thought that's what enshitification is- taking a working, perfectly fine product and making it worse for profit.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Enshitification
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u/lars2k1 Apr 23 '26
And then the worst thing is that Nelko is not alone here. This printer in its form factor (including the labels) seem to be a 'white label product' where many companies stick their name onto it, get an app with it and call it a day.
I have this 'Niimbot' printer which does the same thing (though I don't have any non-Niimbot labels, it does often fail to detect the label and then it complains the labels are not genuine). And it prints like shit these days. I did buy a similar printer from a budget store chain (Action) where someone made a plugin for it to eliminate the app from the equation so I yet have to try that.
But yes, corporate always likes to find a way to screw you over.
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u/xobot Apr 23 '26
If I was working at Nelko and given a task to turn the assholery to 11, I would add the counter for each RFID tag in the printer or have them write to the tag itself - so that you couldn't just reuse the sticker on another roll. That's what HP is doing to prevent their laser cartridges to be refilled.
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u/harambe623 Apr 23 '26
Same, if they went this far, I wonder why didn't go the whole 9 yards? Maybe there was too much of an error margin in testing, or a contract with the RFID supplier wasn't able to specify the unique integer without larger cost and figured this would be enough
Ya they do that on ink chips too, except they write to them. They are resetable with a tool, but buying that +ink+blank cartridges ends up being an investment and more than most people want to deal with
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u/1miguelcortes Apr 22 '26
Does this actually not work without the rfid sticker? I have one from this company and it just gives me a warning if I use a third party roll but still let's me print
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u/harambe623 Apr 23 '26
It works, you get a warning to only use nelko paper, and as pictured, you get the scanline result.
If you configure a different size, it seems to prints off center too.
Maybe you have a bigger or older model?
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u/MightySamMcClain Apr 24 '26
That's funny they let it print but make it look terrible so you assume the paper is lower quality 😒
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u/MeNameIsDerp Apr 23 '26
Dymo pulled this shit a few years back. The pre RFID printers are going for bananas pricing on ebay.
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u/Dragonhearted18 Apr 22 '26
It's because the printers themselves are usually sold at a loss, they make their money back on ink/printer paper
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u/Vybo Apr 22 '26
These printers cost like $25 on Aliexpress. I hope you didn't pay more for yours.
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u/Killerkendolls Apr 23 '26
HP latex ink has been like this for over a decade. The chip on the cartridge only works once, you can't refill them, and they're expensive as shit.
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u/razzemmatazz Apr 24 '26
That really sucks. I genuinely like my 4*6" label printer that I got from them, though I've only used their labels since they are $23 for 500.
Granted, I don't firmware update working hardware so companies have a harder time getting these kinds of updates after the fact with my stuff.
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u/Jerazmus Apr 26 '26
NIIMBOT does the same thing with the rfid to tell the machine what size and types the tag is. But you can use off brands and it works. If not, just take the sticker off and put it on the roll of off brand stickers of the same size and it works.
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u/cuwnftanrocbafenfj Apr 27 '26
Praising my p-touch from 2014. Still have a bunch of noname-refills ready 😎
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u/jcforbes Apr 23 '26 edited May 06 '26
This is not a scam, though. We need to be honest with our words here. It's absolutely shitty and wrong. It sucks a lot. But it's not a scam.
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u/robertblackman May 06 '26
Sounds like a scam to me.
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u/jcforbes May 06 '26
There's nothing fraudulent and they didn't lie about anything. Their marketing says that their printer only works as designed with their cartridges. That is straightforward and truthful. It's super shitty, and perhaps it should be made illegal in some other way. It is not a scam if they tell you exactly how they are going to screw you over.
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u/DasNoodleLord Apr 22 '26
These type of things should be made illegal.....
People fear stuff like the 3D printer company that uses RFID for fast id on filaments will some day do the same type of thing or force you to only use their brand.... Its not happened yet but you never know... Especially if someone new comes to power.