Portable printers such as the Zebra ZQ610-HC bring healthcare labeling to the patient’s room.
A Printer That Keeps Going in Healthcare Settings
Having a mobile printer in a healthcare setting is truly useful only if its battery is able to hold a charge for an entire shift and be recharged again and again over a period of months or years. Even the most advanced battery will lose its ability to maintain a charge over time, so the key to avoiding downtime is knowing when you need to replace a battery altogether.
Zebra delivers this capability with its PowerPrecision batteries, including those found in the ZQ610-HC mobile printer. Each PowerPrecision battery can report not only its charge level, but also its overall health. It does this directly though the printer’s LED screen, and also sends status updates to a mobile device management platform for remote monitoring.
Battery health was very good on the printer I tested, as one would expect in a new product. Battery status is reported using two units of measure: charge level and general battery health. A battery that is 99 percent charged and at a high level of health is going to operate at a high level, whereas one that is at 99 percent and low health may not last as long.
The PowerPrecision battery’s measure of health translates to capacity. A battery in poor health might be able to hold only 50 percent of the charge it could store when it was new, but it will still report as fully charged. By adding the overall health metric, Zebra lets administrators see how their printer batteries are really doing. Armed with that information, healthcare IT teams can plan ahead to replace their batteries long before they start dying in the middle of a shift.
SPECIFICATIONS
PRINTER TYPE: Digital thermal printer
SUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEMS: Windows Mobile, Android, iOS
MEMORY: 512MB; 128MB for user storage
CONNECTIVITY: 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1
DIMENSIONS: 6.5 x 3.5 x 2.5 inches
WEIGHT: 1.33 pounds (with battery)