FAQ

Plug it in and switch the printer on. Texty prints a slip with a QR code: scan it, pick your home WiFi, then scan the second QR code and type your name. It takes about five minutes and you need nothing but your phone. The setup guide walks you through it with pictures.

A 2.4 GHz WiFi network with a password, like almost every home router has. If your router shows one name for 2.4 and 5 GHz, that's fine. 5 GHz-only networks and WiFi with a sign-in page (hotels, cafés, some dorms) don't work.

No app store. Texty runs in your phone's browser. Add it to your home screen and it behaves like an app, with notifications when a note was printed or someone sent you one.

Yes. Anyone you invite can write to your Texty from their phone. They only need a Texty themselves if they want notes on paper too.

Yes. One account can own several, say one in the kitchen and one at your grandparents'. Friends pick which one to print on, or write to all of them at once.

Yes. Set it up yourself at their place, name it (“Grandma's kitchen”), and invite the family. The person at home only reads the notes and presses the heart button to say thanks.

57 mm thermal paper rolls, up to 30 mm across, the kind used by pocket photo printers. No ink, no cartridges. You find them online or in office supply shops: search for “57 × 30 mm thermal paper”. We plan to sell packs of ten too.

Thermal prints fade slowly, faster in sunlight, heat or plastic sleeves. Keep the ones you love in a book or a box, or take a photo. BPA-free paper is nicer to handle.

It's happiest plugged in: one USB-C cable charges the printer and Texty together. The built-in battery keeps it going for roughly a day or two away from the cable (our estimate, depending on how much it prints), which is handy for moving it around or showing it off.

There's no subscription. The only running cost is paper, a few cents per note.

Only people you've added as friends. You can limit it to some friends or groups, block people, and set quiet hours so nothing prints at night.

Honest answer: notes travel encrypted, but they are stored on the Texty server so they can wait for your Texty and show up in your history. Whoever runs the server could technically see them. Note images are deleted 90 days after printing. Secret notes are different: they're end-to-end encrypted to your Texty's own key, so nobody else can read them, not even whoever runs Texty. They never show up in the app and are deleted as soon as they're printed. More on the security & privacy page.

Texty opens no ports: nothing on your network or the internet can connect to it. It only calls out, over encrypted HTTPS, to the Texty server, and it only installs updates that are digitally signed.

Texty is a small project run by one person, so this is a fair question. Without the server, notes can't reach your Texty. The printer itself keeps working with its own phone app. If Texty ever shuts down, the plan is to say so well in advance and share what you need to run your own server; the Texty can be pointed at another server with a USB cable.

Not yet. You can reserve one in the shop and we'll email you when it's available. Or build your own from the parts list.