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IPP Printers smart home integration, free and open source

IPP Printers integration for Gladys Assistant

Ink/toner levels and state of your network printers over IPP (AirPrint). Local, no cloud.

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This integration monitors your network printers through the standard IPP protocol (Internet Printing Protocol) — the one AirPrint uses. It runs fully locally: no account, no cloud, no API key. It requires Gladys 5.1 or newer.

What you get​

One Gladys device per printer, with:

  • one sensor per ink or toner cartridge (level in %), with history — so you can chart consumption over time and trigger scenes ("black ink below 10% → notification");
  • the printer state: idle (ready), printing, stopped, with the reason when the printer reports it (stopped (media-empty) = out of paper). The state is watched continuously (sampled every 15 s) and updated as soon as it changes, independently of the interval set for the levels: a print job only lasts a few seconds.

A printer permanently showing idle is usually normal: that is the state of a powered-on printer with nothing to do. It only changes while printing or when something is wrong (out of paper, jam). The "Test a printer" button shows you live what yours reports at any moment.

Compatibility​

Any network printer supporting AirPrint / IPP Everywhere (the vast majority of printers sold since ~2012: HP, Epson, Canon, Brother, Lexmark…). The printer must be on the same network as Gladys, with IPP enabled (it is by default; some menus call it "AirPrint").

Printers report their levels in three different ways depending on the brand and firmware: the integration tries all three (the marker-* IPP attributes, the printer-supply variant, then SNMP — what CUPS uses — when IPP announces nothing). If none answers, the device only exposes its state.

Many laser printers only announce their toners over IPP, while their SNMP table also lists the wear parts: drum or imaging unit, fuser, transfer belt, waste toner container. The integration reads those as a complement, never touching the cartridges IPP already announces. On a device already added, a part found this way is offered through "Update" in the Discovery tab.

Configuration​

  1. Install the integration: printers advertising IPP over mDNS are discovered automatically and show up in the Discovery tab.
  2. If a printer is not found (mDNS blocked, different subnet…), add it to Printers (manual list): an IP (192.168.1.20), a hostname (printer.local) or a full URI (ipp://192.168.1.20/ipp/print), separated by commas.
  3. Adjust the refresh interval if needed (900 s by default — ink levels move slowly). It only applies to the levels: the state is watched continuously (every 15 s).
  4. Pick the language of the sensor names if you wish: by default they are the raw names reported by the printer (usually English, like "black cartridge"); selecting English, French, German or Spanish turns the recognized cartridges into "Black ink", « Encre noire », "Toner Schwarz", "Tóner cian"… The setting applies to newly added devices — for an existing device, rename its features from its page, or delete and re-add it (the history of the old features is then lost).
  5. Add the discovered devices from the Discovery tab.

Tip: give a fixed IP (DHCP reservation) to printers that do not advertise their unique id (UUID) — the integration then falls back to the hostname to identify them.

Actions​

  • Test a printer — type an IP, hostname or ipp:// URI: the integration queries it live and shows the model, state and detected levels. The fastest way to check an address before adding it to the manual list.

Dashboard widgets​

With Gladys 5.1 or newer, the integration offers two widgets in the dashboard editor (under "IPP Printers").

  • Printer: one printer at a glance — a gauge per supply (ink, toner, drum…), the state (idle, printing, stopped with its reason), the time of the last reading and the lowest supply, plus a Check button that queries the printer right away and re-publishes its values. Setting: the printer to show (leave empty for the first one added to Gladys). The gauges are bound to the device sensors: they follow the levels live, without waiting for the widget refresh. Limits: at most 5 gauges (the dashboard caps a widget at 8 elements); beyond that, the cartridges (ink, toner) come first, in the printer order, then the parts (drum, fuser, belt, rollers…), the lowest first. No supply goes missing: the ones without a gauge are listed under the state, the lowest first ("Fuser 92 %"). Gauges are green from 25 %, orange below, red under 10 %. The common state reasons are made readable ("Idle (toner low)").
  • Supplies: every printer in one list, the most critical first — for each, the state and the lowest supply ("Idle · Black 12 %"), colored by level (red under 10 %, orange under 25 %) — and the number of printers "to watch" (a supply under 25 %). No setting. At most 10 printers are listed.

Both widgets read the last reading made by the integration (every 15 s for the state, at the configured interval for the levels): they never query the printer themselves, except through the Check button. Until a printer has answered since the integration started, its state reads "Waiting for the first reading". The short supply names follow the Sensor names setting ("Black", "Cyan", "Drum", "Pickup roller tray 1"… in English; the raw name reported by the printer otherwise). Two supplies of one printer never share a name: without a recognized qualifier, the raw printer name or a number ("Roller 1", "Roller 2") tells them apart.

Troubleshooting​

  • Printer not discovered: check that it answers IPP with the "Test a printer" action. If the test fails, check that port 631 is open and that IPP/AirPrint is enabled in the printer settings.
  • No ink levels: run "Test a printer", the message tells you which case you are in. "no supply announced, over IPP nor SNMP" means the printer keeps its levels for its own app: a firmware limitation, not an integration one. If SNMP is disabled in the printer network settings, turning it back on is sometimes enough for the cartridges to show up (the community name must stay public).
  • The drum (or fuser, transfer belt…) does not show up: those parts are only read over SNMP. "Test a printer" ends with "(+ SNMP: Imaging Unit…)" when SNMP added some; otherwise check that SNMP is enabled on the printer (community public). A part IPP already announces under another name is never added twice.
  • A single cartridge shows "unknown" (often the black one, on HP): if that cartridge is refilled or third-party, this is by HP design — the firmware refuses to estimate the level of non-genuine cartridges (it shows "?" even on the printer's own screen). The value exists nowhere; with a genuine cartridge the level comes back by itself. The "Test a printer" button shows the raw reported value ("unknown (-2)").
  • The printer answers but with an error (HTTP 500, HTTP 426): common on minimalist firmwares (Epson EcoTank in particular). The integration automatically tries several request variants (IPP 1.1 then 2.0, with and without an explicit attribute list) and switches to encrypted IPP (ipps://) by itself when the printer requires it (HTTP 426). If everything fails, the "Test a printer" button shows the exact error — paste it on the forum.
  • Non-standard IPP path: a printer found on the network is queried on the path it announces; otherwise the integration tries /ipp/print, /ipp then /. If your printer uses another path (some CUPS queues for instance), type the full URI: ipp://host:631/the/path.
  • The integration logs (Gladys UI or docker logs) stay quiet at the default level: start, discoveries, a printer that stops answering then comes back (one line each), your actions. With LOG_LEVEL=debug they trace every reading, every request and every skipped printer.

Configuration settings​

These are the settings IPP Printers asks for in its configuration screen in Gladys.

SettingTypeRequiredDescription
How it workssectionNoPrinters advertising IPP (any AirPrint-capable printer) are discovered automatically on your network. You can also list printers manually below — useful when mDNS does not reach them. Each printer exposes one sensor per supply (ink, toner, drum…), plus its state. Levels missing over IPP (all of them, or a laser's drum, fuser, belt and waste container) are read over SNMP, the way CUPS does.
Printers (manual list)stringNoOptional. IPs, hostnames or ipp:// URIs, separated by commas — e.g. 192.168.1.20, printer.local, ipp://192.168.1.30/ipp/print.
Sensor namesselectNoApplies to newly added devices. Printers report their supplies in their own words (usually English): keep them as-is, or translate the recognized cartridges.
Levels refresh interval (s)numberNoHow often the ink/toner levels are recorded, in seconds. They move slowly: 900 s (15 min) is plenty. The printer state is watched continuously (sampled every 15 s) and updated as soon as it changes.

How to install IPP Printers in Gladys​

  1. In Gladys, open Integrations: IPP Printers appears in the catalog, next to the native integrations, with a community badge.
  2. Click Install. Gladys pulls the Docker image (ghcr.io/guim31/gladys-ipp:1.3.2), starts it in a sandbox isolated from the core, and generates the integration's interface (devices, discovery and configuration).
  3. Open the Configuration screen of the integration, fill in the settings, and save.
  4. You can also install it directly from its repository URL: https://github.com/guim31/gladys-ipp.

IPP Printers requires Gladys >=5.1.0. The catalog inside Gladys refreshes every hour, so a new version becomes available at most one hour after its release.

Not running Gladys yet? It is free and open source: follow the installation guide to get started.

About external integrations​

IPP Printers is an external integration: a community integration packaged as a Docker container and published on GitHub, that Gladys installs in one click and runs in a sandbox isolated from its core. It is published and maintained by guim31, not by the Gladys core team.

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