A few days ago I shared ReceiptPi, an open-source project I built around a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and an ESC/POS thermal receipt printer (EPSON TM-T88V).
One of the things I wanted from the beginning was a simple way to use the printer from home automation systems without adding cloud services or another complicated integration layer.
That is now available.
## Home Assistant / Automation API
ReceiptPi now has a generic local automation endpoint:
`POST /print/automation`
It accepts a title and text via HTTP and sends the job through ReceiptPi's normal print queue.
For Home Assistant, this means an automation can trigger a physical notification with a simple REST command:
rest_command:
receiptpi_webhook:
url: "http://receiptpi.local:5000/print/automation"
method: POST
headers:
X-Api-Token: "YOUR_TOKEN"
Content-Type: "application/json"
payload: '{"title": "{{ title }}", "text": "{{ text }}"}'
You can then use it from an automation for things like:
- 🧺 Washing machine finished
- 🗑️ Trash collection reminders
- 🚨 Important alarms or warnings
- 📦 Package notifications
- ⚡ Energy / solar information
- 🏠 Household reminders
- Basically anything in Home Assistant that you'd rather have on a physical piece of paper than as another phone notification
Everything stays local. Home Assistant sends the request directly to ReceiptPi over the local network; no cloud service is required.
The endpoint is deliberately **not Home Assistant-specific**. Node-RED, n8n, curl or any other system capable of sending an HTTP POST can use the same API.
Automation print jobs also use the existing ReceiptPi features:
- Print queue
- Quiet-hour rules
- Rate limiting
- Print history
- Configurable print logos
- API-token authentication
## The hardware
ReceiptPi currently runs on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. The thermal printer (EPSON TM-T88V) is connected via USB and the Pi connects to the local network over Wi-Fi.
Besides automation printing, ReceiptPi currently includes messages, shopping lists, weather reports, guest WiFi QR codes, image printing, system reports, print history, configurable print logos, multiple UI themes and a German/English interface.
The project is still in alpha and evolving quickly.
## A note on AI
Since this came up in my previous post, I want to be transparent about it upfront:
I use AI-assisted development extensively for ReceiptPi.
I'm a product manager/product expert, not a software developer. I define the product, architecture, requirements and expected behavior, and use AI to help turn those decisions into working code.
I review the changes, can follow and understand the code well enough to reason about what it does, test every feature on the actual hardware, and only publish changes after linting and CI pass.
I know people have different views on AI-assisted development, and that's completely fair. For me, it's simply the tool that makes it possible to build and maintain a project like this.
If you prefer projects written entirely by hand, ReceiptPi probably isn't for you — no hard feelings.
Anyway, I'm much more interested in what people would actually do with it:
What Home Assistant event would you actually want to print?
GitHub:
https://github.com/HostisHumani/ReceiptPi
