Some restaurants no longer use printed menus and instead offer digital menus which are only accessible by scanning QR codes. Guy Dupont has created a project for those that insist on having a printed copy of the restaurant menu. Dupont created a portable Lunchbox Printer The QR code scans the URL to create a menu.
The device can both scan and print, so the idea was that it would be brought to restaurants to be used for scanning QR codes and printing them on the table. Dupont has connected an ESP32 to a thermal printer generic. This module can connect to the Internet, which is required to retrieve menu data.
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Dupont divides the process into five segments. The device has to first scan the QR Code and access the website. It then takes a screenshot using Microsoft Playwright, a software library. If the website is a PDF, it’s downloaded. If the image of the screenshot is not a PDF, it will be scanned for any text.
The text is sent to ChatGPT. This text is then summarized and formatted. ChatGPT’s response is printed on the thermal printer. You could get the menu in real-time without having to access the website. You only need an internet connection.
Dupon confirmed that the device is powered by a Seeed Studio Xiao ESP32 S3 microcontroller. The project uses open-source software, which is available on the website. GitHub Anyone can explore. Hackaday will soon be publishing a detailed report on the project.
You can watch the entire video by Dupont to see this project in action. You can watch videos on YouTube.
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