Getting the iPad to talk to the H470

If you enjoyed my previous post on completely wireless printing with the iPad (or iPhone/iPod Touch), you may be wondering how to get your H470 set up to talk to the iPad ... here's specific steps for the H470:

Note: Even if you have a different printer, you should be able to apply the following principles to it to get it to work... the important things are making it an AdHoc network and getting the printer and iPad onto the same subnet.




First, you'll need to find out (or set) the H470's IP address and subnet.

Note: These instructions are from Windows ... to do this on a Mac, you'll need to use the Network Printer Setup Utility. In either case, the H470 Manual should help.

To do this, switch on the printer and open the HP Solution Center. Click Settings on the bottom and then choose Printer Toolbox.

Now you'll have a pop-up window with several tabs - you want the "Configure WiFi Profiles" tab ... there'll be three profiles and the active one will have a blue circle, find it and click Configure.

You want it to be an "AdHoc" network, choose any channel (or Auto) and then ensure Manual is checked for the IP settings. Clicking Next you can select if it needs a password or not. Don't set a WEP password yet - make sure it works without any security first then go back afterwards and add WEP encryption if you really need to. Now we get to the payload ... IP Settings.

Here you can set yourself an IP address and subnet ... you could use the settings I chose:

IP Address: 192.168.1.2

Subnet: 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1 (this is the address you'll set on your iPad)
DNS: 8.8.8.8 (for both)

Save the settings and then pop off to your iPad. Open Settings->Wi-Fi and look for the printer network you just set up ... click the white arrow in the blue circle to the right of it to set the network settings.

Choose Static from the three options underneath "IP Address" and put in the two important pieces of info:

IP Address: 192.168.1.1

Subnet: 255.255.255.0

Click the arrow right at the top to go back to "Wi-Fi Networks" and connect to the printer network you just set up (note: try it all without any security first - then go back afterwards and add WEP encryption if you need to). Once you have a tick to indicate you've successfully connected, you should be good to go - open up HP home&biz and you should see your H470 sitting there ready to print.

Enjoy printing without a wire in sight :-)

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