I have an HP Business Printer at home: A Laserjet M477fdw. It's brilliant and I've had it for years at this point. I also use non-HP toner. However, I have never connected it to the internet. Ever.
Since day one, I set a static IP and prevented internet access simply by removing the gateway IP (I've recently upgraded my router and blocked internet access entirely). I also use a driver from 2021.
I genuinely cannot see a need at all to connect it to the internet, let alone allow AI to have access to it.
It honestly reeks of middle-management scrabbling to find a reason to spend budget on AI! In fact, now that I think about it, this is as asinine as the Logitech subscription mouse![0]
The way companies are flailing to include AI in their plans in any way possible seems to be driven by investors rather than anyone in touch with the actual business of the business. Very bubble behavior.
What does the printer do if reset to factory defaults, maybe through a long power outage?
I had a similar no gateway and static IP trick (it was a lazy short term move) for a Windows VM and I found Windows ran the network fixer without my input at some point and had reset DHCP so it could get those updates!
>Since day one, I set a static IP and prevented internet access simply by removing the gateway IP (I've recently upgraded my router and blocked internet access entirely). I also use a driver from 2021.
Printers are cursed like that.
I won't be surprised once we have ink cartridges with builtin fw version numbers which make the printer stop working until its firmware is updated to the latest version, which then can only be done by connecting it to the internet.
They already sucked enough to annoy Stallman to the point of making him come up with GNU back then. They only got worse.
Actual printing tech hasn't advanced all that much.
This ridiculous situation exists only because we do not have an Open Hardware (OSH) printer. If we got one (1), everybody would get that one, and the farce would forcibly end. No more bullshit.
Peak HP has been ages ago, when they spun off Agilent and turned their core business from top notch lab equipment manufacturer to consumer electronics.
