Zebra's Industry Solutions can give your business a competitive advantage by connecting people, assets and data to help you make better decisions.
Scale and energise your retail strategy with a digital backbone that unifies your team, informs priorities and drives results with Zebra's retail technology solutions.
Zebra's healthcare technology solutions provide patient identity management, mobile health devices, and business intelligence data to improve efficiency.
Zebra’s manufacturing technology solutions enable manufacturers to become more agile, optimise plant floor performance and embrace market changes.
Zebra's market-leading solutions and products improve customer satisfaction with a lower cost per interaction by keeping service representatives connected with colleagues, customers, management and the tools they use to satisfy customers across the supply chain.
In today's world, the demands on transportation and logistics companies are higher than ever. Dedicated Warehouse, Fleet and Delivery, and Yard and Terminal solutions enable visibility to every aspect of your business and keep operations running flawlessly around the clock.
Zebra's hospitality technology solutions equip your hotel and restaurant staff to deliver superior customer and guest service through inventory tracking and more.
Empower your field workers with purpose-driven mobile technology solutions to help them capture and share critical data in any environment.
Zebra’s mobile computing, scanning, and printing solutions connect each operational area in your warehouse to give you the agility to realize transformational gains.
Zebra's range of mobile computers equip your workforce with the devices they need from handhelds and tablets to wearables and vehicle-mounted computers.
Zebra's desktop, mobile, industrial, and portable printers for barcode labels, receipts, RFID tags and cards give you smarter ways to track and manage assets.
Zebra's 1D and 2D corded and cordless barcode scanners anticipate any scanning challenge in a variety of environments, whether retail, healthcare, T&L or manufacturing.
Zebra's extensive range of RAIN RFID readers, antennas, and printers give you consistent and accurate tracking.
Choose Zebra's reliable barcode, RFID and card supplies carefully selected to ensure high performance, print quality, durability and readability.
Zebra's location technologies provide real-time tracking for your organisation to better manage and optimise your critical assets and create more efficient workflows.
Zebra's rugged tablets and 2-in-1 laptops are thin and lightweight, yet rugged to work wherever you do on familiar and easy-to-use Windows or Android OS.
With Zebra's family of fixed industrial scanners and machine vision technologies, you can tailor your solutions to your environment and applications.
Zebra’s line of kiosks can meet any self-service or digital signage need, from checking prices and stock on an in-aisle store kiosk to fully-featured kiosks that can be deployed on the wall, counter, desktop or floor in a retail store, hotel, airport check-in gate, physician’s office, local government office and more.
Discover Zebra’s range of accessories from chargers, communication cables to cases to help you customise your mobile device for optimal efficiency.
Zebra's environmental sensors monitor temperature-sensitive products, offering data insights on environmental conditions across industry applications.
Keep labour costs low, your talent happy and your organisation compliant. Create an agile operation that can navigate unexpected schedule changes and customer demand to drive sales, satisfy customers and improve your bottom line.
Empower the front line with prioritised task notification and enhanced communication capabilities for easier collaboration and more efficient task execution.
Get full visibility of your inventory and automatically pinpoint leaks across all channels.
Reduce uncertainty when you anticipate market volatility. Predict, plan and stay agile to align inventory with shifting demand.
Drive down costs while driving up employee, security, and network performance with software designed to enhance Zebra's wireless infrastructure and mobile solutions.
Explore Zebra’s printer software to integrate, manage and monitor printers easily, maximising IT resources and minimising down time.
Make the most of every stage of your scanning journey from deployment to optimisation. Zebra's barcode scanner software lets you keep devices current and adapt them to your business needs for a stronger ROI across the full lifecycle.
RFID development, demonstration and production software and utilities help you build and manage your RFID deployments more efficiently.
RFID development, demonstration and production software and utilities help you build and manage your RFID deployments more efficiently.
Zebra DNA is the industry’s broadest suite of enterprise software that delivers an ideal experience for all during the entire lifetime of every Zebra device.
Advance your digital transformation and execute your strategic plans with the help of the right location and tracking technology.
The Zebra Aurora suite of machine vision software enables users to solve their track-and-trace, vision inspection and industrial automation needs.
Zebra Aurora Focus brings a new level of simplicity to controlling enterprise-wide manufacturing and logistics automation solutions. With this powerful interface, it’s easy to set up, deploy and run Zebra’s Fixed Industrial Scanners and Machine Vision Smart Cameras, eliminating the need for different tools and reducing training and deployment time.
Aurora Imaging Library™, formerly Matrox Imaging Library, machine-vision software development kit (SDK) has a deep collection of tools for image capture, processing, analysis, annotation, display, and archiving. Code-level customization starts here.
Aurora Design Assistant™, formerly Matrox Design Assistant, integrated development environment (IDE) is a flowchart-based platform for building machine vision applications, with templates to speed up development and bring solutions online quicker.
Designed for experienced programmers proficient in vision applications, Aurora Vision Library provides the same sophisticated functionality as our Aurora Vision Studio software but presented in programming language.
Aurora Vision Studio, an image processing software for machine & computer vision engineers, allows quick creation, integration & monitoring of powerful OEM vision applications.
Adding innovative tech is critical to your success, but it can be complex and disruptive. Professional Services help you accelerate adoption, and maximise productivity without affecting your workflows, business processes and finances.
Zebra's Managed Service delivers worry-free device management to ensure ultimate uptime for your Zebra Mobile Computers and Printers via dedicated experts.
Find ways you can contact Zebra Technologies’ Support, including Email and Chat, ask a technical question or initiate a Repair Request.
Zebra's Circular Economy Program helps you manage today’s challenges and plan for tomorrow with smart solutions that are good for your budget and the environment.
Unlike inkjet or dot matrix printers, thermal printers use a heated printhead to produce an image. This process creates images with high-quality prints that can withstand greater abuse. There are two types of thermal printers: direct thermal and thermal transfer. Both use a thermal printhead that applies heat to the surface being marked.
If you’re printing barcodes—especially on labels, tags or wristbands that have a long lifespan or are exposed to sunlight, moisture or harsh conditions—it’s likely you’re using or considering using thermal printers.
Thermal-based technology is also a great option if you’re looking for:
Alternative technology such as impact printers* are more likely to break in dynamic and industrial environments. They often lack the print quality to produce crisp, consistently scannable barcodes and aren’t optimized for adhesive label media.
*Impact printers operate by striking a metal or plastic head against an ink ribbon. Ex: dot matrix, daisy-wheel and ball printers.
There are two types of Thermal Printers:-
Thermal transfer printers work by using a heated printhead that applies that heat to a ribbon that has a wax or resin coating, depending on the type of media. The heat from the printhead melts the wax or resin and transfers it from the ribbon and onto the media. This is why this process is called thermal transfer. The wax or resin is absorbed by the media so that the image becomes part of the media. This technique provides a high-quality image and durability that is unmatched by other on-demand printing technologies. Thermal transfer printers can accept a wider variety of media than direct thermal models, including paper, polyester and polypropylene materials.
Direct thermal printers work by creating images directly on the printed material without using a ribbon, toner or ink. Instead, this method uses chemically treated, heat-sensitive media that blackens when it passes under the thermal printhead. As a result, this media is more sensitive to light, heat and abrasion. And, labels and tags are not as long-lasting. Images can fade over time, and media will darken if overexposed to heat, light or other catalysts.
Neither thermal transfer or direct thermal printers use ink. Read more about the differences and advantages of Direct Thermal and Thermal Transfer Printing.
There are four types of thermal printers:
These portable tools are designed to meet your on-the-move barcode printing needs. They should be lightweight, durable and feature wireless connectivity. You should be able to install media easily. They should have an easy to read display, and withstand bangs and bumps. Some mobile printers have incredible durability to withstand sprays of water, immersion, drastic temperature ranges and repeated drops to concrete from a distance.
Mobile printers are ideal for retail, hospitality, healthcare, warehouse management, transportation and manufacturing to print a variety of labels, receipts and tags.
Desktop printers are designed to do just that—fit on a desk or other small space. They should require minimal maintenance, be easy to use and offer varying wired and wireless connectivity options. Media should be simple to load. Desktop printers should be reliable, cost effective and able to handle a moderate level of print jobs. Premium models should evolve with technology and changing business needs.
Desktop printers are ideal for use in retail, healthcare, hospitality, transportation and light manufacturing to print a variety of labels, tags, wristbands and receipts.
For more demanding environments and higher volume printing, industrial printers are ideal. Larger in size, they are typically more substantial in construction. They should be easy to integrate into your existing enterprise and intuitive for your teams to operate. Premium models are incredibly rugged and can even support 24/7 environments and critical business operations. They can help you see your entire supply chain in real time, increase efficiencies and leverage Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to gain a competitive advantage. Incredibly rugged models can even support 24/7 environments and critical business operations.
Industrial printers are best suited for use in applications in manufacturing, transportation and logistics, government, retail and healthcare to produce labels and tags.
Print engines are designed to integrate into a print-and-apply system, such as a packaging line. They are typically accompanied by a product sensor to activate printing and an applicator (tamp) to affix the label to the item being marked. Print engines need to be durable workhorses that can perform nonstop. Because they are integrated into a system, you need easy access for speedy maintenance. And, it is ideal to have swappable components that can be removed to keep production lines moving.
Print engines are used in manufacturing, shipping and fulfilment environments to produce labels.
Thermal Printers have many uses in a variety of applications across various industries:
Retail and Hospitality
At Zebra, quality and customer input and satisfaction are critical. These are our focus. We’ve been engineering and innovating thermal printers, and associated technologies and solutions, for 50 years. Our customers and partners are our focus groups, benchmarks and driving inspiration.
Zebra has a globally recognized reputation for quality and performance. When you select a Zebra product—such as a mobile, desktop, industrial printer or a print engine—you are selecting a proven solution engineered for your purpose. We offer an extensive portfolio to match your environment, print volume and application needs.
Explore Zebra Thermal Printers
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