Setting Up Static IP with Square Point of Sale
By default, Square Point of Sale uses dynamic IP address to connect to a printer. This is ideal for most scenarios. With a static IP connection, Square provides a fixed network address that your Point of Sale tablets and smartphones can use to communicate directly to your printer. Using a static IP address is useful in cases of remote communication (such as bypassing a VPN) and helps to avoid downtime with network outages, especially in situations with multiple checkout stations linking to one printer.
Read more about connecting a printer station to your device.
Note: Static IP is only available for iOS devices. This feature is not available for Android devices at this time, including Square Terminal and Square Register.
How It Works
Set Up a Static IP Address on Square POS
Setting up a static IP address should be done before you connect a printer to your Square Point of Sale. You’ll need to enable a static IP address for each printer that you are setting up to use a static IP address. If you have already connected your printer to your Point of Sale, disconnect and reconnect the printer once you have found your device’s static IP address.
Square supports most common Epson and Star Micronics printer models. Learn more about hardware compatibility by device.
Set Up Steps by Printer Type
You must begin by setting up each individual printer to have a static IP address, which is done on the manufacturer’s web browser interface.
We recommend that you work with your network administrator on the below steps to ensure that the address you assign to a printer is also properly reserved in your network configuration, and will not reset upon network restart.
To configure Epson printers to have a static IP address, follow the below steps:
- Obtain the current IP address of the Epson printer. You can do so by turning the printer off and holding down the Feed button while turning the printer on. Keep pressing down on the feed button until the printer prints out two information sheets: the first containing general printer information, and the second containing network information with the IP address.
- Connect to the printer using either an iPad or computer on the same network.
- Open a web browser and enter the IP address along with /webconfig in the URL bar. For example, if the IP address that prints out is 192.168.0.149 you would enter http://192.168.0.149/webconfig.
- On the web browser page, log in using:
Username: epson
Password: epson - Click TCP/IP. Within the Get IP Address section, select Manual.
- Input the printer’s IP address in the IP Address field > click Submit.
- On the next page, click Reset.
To configure Star Micronics printers to have a static IP address, follow the below steps:
- Obtain the current IP address of the Star Micronics printer. You can do so by turning the printer off and holding down the Feed button while turning the printer on until the Ready light is solid. The printer will print out two information sheets: the first containing general printer information, and the second containing network information with the IP address.
- Open a web browser and enter the IP address in the URL bar. For example, if the IP address that prints out is 192.168.0.149 you would enter http://192.168.0.149.
- On the web browser page, log in using:
Username root
Password public
Both the username and password are case sensitive. If prompted to change the password, press Cancel. - From the main menu click IP Parameters > select Static. The current IP address and subnet mask should autofill, but if they don’t you can locate them on the test print page from step one.
- Click Submit.
- Select Save from the main menu > Configuration printing > Restart device.
- Click Execute.
The receipt printer should restart and print a new configuration report with Static listed next to the IP address instead of DHCP.
Connect Square Point of Sale to a Static IP Address
Before getting started, please ensure you’re on the latest version of the Square Point of Sale app.
Log in to your Square app and click Settings > Hardware > Printers.
Tap Create Printer Station > Select Printer then Advanced Printer Setup.
Select the printer you wish to connect and enter the static IP address for your printer. If you do not have your static IP address, follow the instructions from the section above in order to obtain this information.
Once you provide your static IP address, your printer will connect to the Square static IP network.
Note: If you are getting a “Printer Not Found” notification when trying to connect, double check the IP address for your device is correct. You’ll also want to ensure your printer was set up correctly for static IP.
Seller Examples
Seller Example: “We run a brewery and a restaurant. Customers order food and drinks from the brewery location, but our kitchen is located across the street. We have to VPN into the kitchen location in order to print tickets there, but with a dynamic IP connection we can’t print to our kitchen.
How static IP solves this: Static IP provides a fixed IP address for the printer to which POS-connected tablets / phones can communicate directly.
Seller Example: I am running a large event space with 10 bars across 3 floors, and one kitchen. I want to have a way to reliably send kitchen orders from all of these locations to the single printer, with minimising possible disconnects.
How static IP solves this: By giving the shared printer an IP address that is fixed/stays the same. Once every checkout station is set up to connect to that printer, those connections will remain indefinitely because the address will never change. This means that if a checkout station goes down, when it reconnects, it can just search for that same location of the printer as it did before.
Seller Example: My network will occasionally go down, and when that happens there is a long lag in devices reconnecting, which then results in a long line forming. I want to minimise the time it takes for ‘searching’ printers, and keep my line moving.
How static IP solves this: With static IP, a small interruption in the connection usually does not terminate the packet exchange with the service. Because the IP address remains the same, connected devices (tablets, phones) don’t need to start the search protocol again for printers - they know where the printers are “located” due to the fixed IP address, which shortens the connection time.
Note: Static IP is only available for iOS devices. This feature is not available for Android devices at this time.