Archived version: https://archive.ph/3vfmc
How much ink does an all-in-one printer need in order to fax a document? Or to scan one to your computer? The obvious answer is “none.” But if you own certain printers from companies like HP and Canon, you won’t be able to use core features unless the device has ink—even if those features have nothing to do with ink.
Unfortunately, all-in-one printers arbitrarily demanding ink to perform non-printing functions isn’t a new frustration. And that’s despite some companies having printers that can scan without ink. Clearly, scanning or faxing without requiring an ink cartridge would improve users’ experience—and they’ve illustrated that through class-action lawsuits. But this hasn’t stopped printer makers from fighting to keep the nettlesome practice.
No ink, no scan
Since mid-2022, HP has been fighting a class-action lawsuit alleging that certain all-in-one printer models won’t scan or fax without ink and that HP doesn’t properly disclose this to shoppers. On January 13, 2023, the complaint was dismissed but allowed to be amended (you can view the amended complaint here: [PDF]), and on August 10, a Northern District of California judge dismissed HP’s motion to dismiss the amended complaint [PDF].
HP Envy 6455e and HP Deskjet 2655 purchasers Gary Freund and Wayne McMath filed the complaint, which states that HP printers are designed to enter an error state when low or out of ink, preventing usage until the installment of a new ink cartridge. The plaintiffs are also peeved that HP marketing and advertising doesn’t clearly disclose this, the complaint says. The complaint also notes that an HP support agent has said that HP printers are “designed in such a way that with the empty cartridge or without the cartridge the printer will not function.”
“HP’s All-in-One Printers do not work as advertised. Ink is not a necessary component to scan or to fax a document,” the complaint reads.
It adds:
Tying the scan or fax capabilities of the All-In-One Printers to ink contained in the devices offers no benefit and only serves to disadvantage and harm consumers financially. However, tying the scan or fax capabilities of the All-In-One Printers to ink contained in the devices does, however [sic], serve to benefit HP.
Anyone who’s owned an inkjet printer knows how expensive ink can be. That suggests a reason to push people to buy ink through tactics like blocking core features if no ink is present and reportedly selling printers below cost. Ink-buying programs have also become cash cows. HP in 2021, for example, said its Instant Ink subscription business was worth $500 million, per CRN. In its Q2 2023 financial report, HP named Instant Ink a key growth area.
The complaint against HP says:
Indeed, HP designs its All-in-One printer products so they will not work without ink. Yet, HP does not disclose this fact to consumers. … Even were it technically possible to scan a document without all ink cartridges present, HP does not disclose any ‘workaround’ to consumers in any of the product packaging nor in any of HP’s advertising and marketing materials regarding its multi-function devices.
The complaint seeks monetary damages as well as the end of HP’s “misleading advertising and marketing campaign” and for HP to “engage in a corrective campaign to inform consumers of the misleading advertising.”
Here are all the HP printer models listed in the complaint:
- HP Deskjet 2755e
- HP DeskJet 3755
- HP DeskJet 4155e
- HP ENVY 6055e
- HP ENVY 6075
- HP ENVY 6455
- HP ENVY Pro 6475
- HP OfficeJet 250 Mobile
- HP OfficeJet Pro 7740 Wide Format
- HP OfficeJet Pro 8025
- HP DeskJet 2622
- HP DeskJet 2655
HP declined to comment on this story.
Canon’s doing it, too
HP isn’t the only company demanding ink for scans and faxes. It’s not even the only one that has faced litigation over it.
As noticed by The Verge, Canon back in March settled a class-action lawsuit [PDF] stating that Canon all-in-one printers can’t scan or fax with low or empty ink cartridges and its “advertising claims are false, misleading, and reasonably likely to deceive the public.”
The settlement terms weren’t disclosed, and Canon didn’t respond to Ars Technica’s request for comment. But here are the models listed in that complaint:
- MAXIFY GX7020
- MAXIFY GX6020
- PIXMA TS3520
- PIXMA G3260
- PIXMA G7020
- PIXMA G2260
- PIXMA MX330
- PIXMA MX452
- PIXMA TS9520
- PIXMA TR8620
- PIXMA TS6420
- PIXMA TS6320
- PIXMA TR4520
- PIXMA MG3620
- PIXMA MG2522
- PIXMA TS3320
- PIXMA TR7020
- PIXMA TS9521C
- PIXMA TS8320
- PIXMA TR8520
- PIXMA TR7520
- “and any and all predecessor models”
Similarly to the HP situation, representatives on Canon’s support forum allegedly confirmed that certain all-in-one printer models require “all ink tanks installed and they must all contain ink in order to use the functions of the printer” and that “there is no workaround for this.”
However, the posts that are linked to in the complaint (here and here) as of November 22, 2022, have a comment from a moderator saying, “It’s possible to scan with an empty ink tank or cartridge.” The support page provides instructions for disabling the function that detects ink levels.
Canon didn’t explain why its printers ever required ink to scan in the first place. But the company has at least agreed to instruct users on disabling the ink requirement, which is better than where HP is currently.
Semantics prioritized over customers
As of this writing, HP doesn’t seem to be working toward enabling its printers to scan and fax without ink. When trying to get the complaint dismissed, HP claimed that support agents who said printers are designed to not scan without ink don’t represent HP and were not referring to printer models owned by the complaint’s plaintiffs.
The printer industry has long had an issue with customer trust. HP, for instance, has bricked third-party ink (and issued other problematic printer firmware updates), along with the company’s controversial HP+ program and region-locked printers . HP has already paid settlements for abruptly bricking third-party ink via its Dynamic Security “feature.”
The Verge noticed that HP at least changed its language for the Envy 6455e’s Amazon product page to say that you can “print, scan, and copy from your phone—from whenever, wherever” to “print, scan, and copy from your phone—from anywhere.”
Such semantic games feel more like HP seeking a loophole than trying to please customers.
Such corporation-first tactics may be why Epson thinks it’s dunking on competitors with its own support page dedicated to this topic. It reads, “Since 2008, all Epson printers will scan even when there is little or no usable ink left in the cartridge.”
But, as is often the case with printers, a sneaky little caveat could abruptly ruin your day. As the support page also states:
However, all of the genuine Epson cartridges must be installed in the printer, even if depleted of usable ink and the printer displays the replace cartridge message.
So you still need an Epson ink cartridge to scan. If you happened to have tossed your ink cartridge when it became useless, your all-in-one printer could be virtually useless, too. (Epson didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
It’s alarming that printer makers know customers feel swindled and confused—but won’t eliminate the problematic design. Printer vendors have become too bold in expecting customers to accept wordplay, settlements, and confusing support responses. Class-action lawsuits may light a fire under these companies, but it shouldn’t be up to disgruntled customers to complain to support agents, lawyers, and judges.
If printer companies can’t deliver a reliable, easy experience, customers will have no choice but to consider alternatives.
Buy a brother. Anything else is a straight up scam.
There is also Epson EcoTank. No cartriges. Just fill it up with Ink. And also no shady stuff like this,
I’d still say laser is best for most, but if you do want/need inkjet, then that’s the way.
Unfortunately toner gives you cancer. (If anyone sits close to a laser printer, know that Ultra-Fine Particle levels fall back to background levels within 1-2 minutes after printing. Maybe take an extra-long poop when printing). For someone who doesn’t print very often, probably the cancer risk is not very large, though.
The cancer risk in general is minimal! Stop acting like everything will give you cancer. Because, realistically, it won’t.
Laser tech here, toner is bad news for your lungs. It requires a HEPA filter to capture the microscopic toner particles. Laser techs can get a lung illness similar to black lung from years of exposure. That being said, I also service epson stuff, and their new enterprise ink printers are insane. Ink jet prints at 100 pages per minute. Archival ink that doesn’t run even under direct water. It has a lot of flaws, but it gets better with each generation.
Pro tip from a tech: if you aren’t printing literally every day, buy a laser. Even over epson. Keeping a print head from drying out is paramount for ink jets, while toner never has to worry about being dry.
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The Epson EcoTank got me through med school without any problems. I printed thousands of pages of colored materials, such as anatomy, pathology, and histology pictures, without needing to buy a single book. It was one of the absolute best purchases I’ve ever made.
Ah, yes, Brother. The company that uses all your yellow ink to clean the print heads and to print tracking dots, and then only gives you up to 4 weeks to print without it before locking you out entirely.
All my printers at work and at home are brother now. Never had any issues and setup was satisfyingly easy each time.
Albeit, I only bought laser printers (BW and Color), so I don’t know how fast the ink empties or dries. However, the printer toner last quiet long, even the knock-off ones.
It’s an inkjet thing.
When you run out of color, Brother lets you select to print using only black ink. But after 4 weeks, they lock you out from that too.
It’s documented on their website. No more printing at that point until you replace the offending color cartridge. They do at least let you scan though.
Meanwhile I have printed exactly one single black-only page since the last time I put in a new yellow cartridge (3 months ago) and yet my yellow ink is almost 1/4 depleted at this point. I’ve just been watching it slowly disappear.
Also worth noting Brother uses that trick where empty cartridges are detected by a laser which is exactly not positioned as low on the cartridge as it could be, forcing people to toss not-so-empty cartridges.
BTW, regarding the trackers dots I’ll drop a link here for anyone who wants to verify Brother’s role in it:
https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots
That’s dumb, and another good reason to not use inkjet printers outside of printing photos or something (and even then, use a photo-specific printer).
Another reason to use inkjets: GHG footprint. Inkjets use far less energy than lasers. It’s a shame we have to choose between ecocide and tricks and traps.
The only no-compromise path I see is to pull an inkjet from the dumpster, fix it, and refill the cartridges with homemade “ink” from spent coffee grounds and tea.
Eh, I don’t think the energy use difference is all that important. It gets a lot more complicated if you factor in the ink drying out before being fully used, which means we’d need to produce and transport more ink. Also, a lot of the energy use for a laser printer is during warm-up, so if you print in big batches, the energy difference is a bit lower since it’s amortized over the amount of pages you print.
So just looking at wall power draw only tells part of the picture, and if you’re only using it a few times per year, it’s largely irrelevant (maybe a couple KWh/year difference?).
All printers do the yellow dot thing, by the way. If they have yellow ink, at least.
That’s why I only buy laser.