How to set up more than one wireless printer with HP ePrint using the HP Smart App

• Link to How to set up more than one wireless printer with HP ePrint using the HP Smart App podacast on anchorfm

I spent most of my time the past week trying to set up a second wireless HP printer in my apartment. The process was hell for a variety of reasons.

• First Mac compatible Printer I had connected to HP Smart: HP Tango X
• Second Mac compatible Printer I connected to HP Smart: Laser Jet Pro M102w

First, there was the documentation, or rather lack thereof. Second, it was hard to get a live person to speak with in HP support. Not that support ended up being the complete help I needed! But at least I learned all the steps by heart!

Initially, it took me forever to connect to this second printer and add it to the HP Smart app to begin with, which replaced hpconnected.com. Most initial Google searches pointed to the old website, which no longer exists. Only after a week of searching and trying out different search keywords, did I finally get some partially relevant information I was looking for. The other issue which might have contributed to the complexity of setting up the second printer is that it was purchased for us, and not by us. The first printer was purchased by me.

I thought I would share the information I gathered that resulted in a successful set-up of a second HP wireless printer.

• Link to the HP Smart App in the App Store

First, you have to download the HP Smart app to the device you want to connect your printer to. I already had one HP Smart printer connected to my own iPhone and laptop, and I did not want (and could not) to connect a second wireless printer to those same devices. Even if I could, it would mean a much slower connection for both. As it is, I have intermittent wireless congestion in general, so a second wireless printer to the same network would have been a disaster for me. Especially since the printer was not meant for my use in the first place!

After you have downloaded the app from the App Store, make sure that you actually have created an account on the HP Smart website as well. In order for everything to work properly, not only do you have to connect your printer to the HP smart app on a mobile device such as an iPhone if you want to print from a mobile device (which you should want to do, since that is the main point of HP Smart to begin with), but you have to make sure that the HP Smart website recognizes that printer as well. This step is crucial to being able to set up an email address for the printer so that you can print an attachment using the printer’s unique email address from your own email address. In other words, you send an email to the printer’s unique email address with the file you want printed attached to the email. I will explain this in a bit. It’s just important to know why it is important to have an account on the HP Smart website.

You can also set up your wireless printer for printing off of your desktop/laptop computer as well. However, I will not be covering that aspect in this article.

The main purpose here is to discuss creating a unique email address using HP’s Web Services so that trusted parties (or you yourself) can send attachments to your printer that are subsequently printed out there. This is a great feature if you are not in the same location as your printer, but a remote one, and want to print to that printer, and read the contents at a later date. Or perhaps send it to someone who is at the printer location so that they can read it.

In my case, I am able to easily have two wireless printers which can function in tandem, because I have two wireless networks set up, and can dedicate one network to one printer, and the other network to another printer.

I only found out after much struggle, that the second printer had to be in the same room as the network router in order to be able to be set up and work properly. I have internet capability in another room where I first set up the second printer, but it was impossible to connect the second wireless printer properly. Things took forever, and the printer oftentimes also lost connection. Most important was that I was not able to create a unique email address for the printer from that location.

When I finally figured out where to place the second printer, it took no time to set things up.

It’s all about LOCATION. LOCATION. LOCATION.

First I set things up via the HP Smart app on an another iPhone which was connected to a wireless network different from my iPhone and laptop. Then I had to connect to HP Web Services by typing in the unique IP address of the printer in the web address bar on the associated iPhone. This took me to the HP Web Services website.

Next, I had to make sure that I was in the HP Web Services tab. If not, I would have had to click on it to get in.

Then I had to click on an "Enable Web Services" button located in the HP Web Services tab, and was then given the prompt that a printout of the printer Info Page was being made. The page contains the printer email address, and the printer claim code, so that you can add your printer to your account on the HP Smart website. It even prompts you to go to hpconnected.com to enter the printer claim code within your account, and thereby be able to manage your printer. However, when you type hpconnected.com in the web browser, you will be re-directed to hpsmart.com.

Enabling HP Web Services results in your printer being web-connected and having its own unique email address. The email address allows you to email file attachments to your printer and print from anywhere at any time. IF you want to print articles off the internet, that is touch and go with this set-up and can take a long time, depending on which device you email from and how far away you are physically from the printer.

For example, when I sent an email from my laptop via my gmail account, containing an attachment which I wanted to print out, the printer received the request almost instantaneously. However, I first had to save the article in question on my desktop as an html page that I subsequently could attach to the email. This was not optimal, as it involved a couple of extra steps, and only text was printed out. The only other way I could possibly send the article via email, was by copyin and pasting the contents of it into the body of the email. And who knows how it would print out! That also would involve extra steps and therefore extra time.

The best way to send articles for others to print out, is by texting the link to the article via smart phone. Then the person receiving the text just has to click on the link, then on the iPhone share icon, which takes them to sharing and/or printing options:

Click on the icon with the upward arrow, and it will take you to various options, including printing with HP Smart, located towards the bottom of the iPhone screen. Click on Print with HP Smart, and it will show the individual pages of the selected web article (or document) to be printed. Click Print, and a progress bar will appear, letting you know which pages are being printed, one at a time.

It is very quick and easy. No fuss. No muss. I am including the link to the comprehensive documentation I finally found yesterday on how to set up an HP Smart website account to enable HP Web Services for your wireless printer. This article in conjunction with the HP Smart documentation I have included in the Related Resources section of this podcast’s transcript/post on interglobalmedianetwork.com should be all you need to set up your first OR second wireless HP printer.

I will be embedding this episode of Plugging in The Holes along with a transcript in the form of a post on interglobalmedianetwork.com for your hearing and reading pleasure. Bye for now!

Related Resources:

• HP Printers - Set Up an HP Smart Website Account