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I tried the Niimbot B21 retro label maker, and it's as useful as it is adorable
Great for homes and small businesses alike, this stylish battery-powered printer makes labeling fun.
Riddle me this: What's modern but old-fashioned and smooth but sticky? Correct: the Niimbot B21 label maker. See, it's modern because it's an ink-free thermal printer that connects to your phone via Bluetooth, and it's old-fashioned because of its retro design and color options. And, of course, it prints smooth labels for you to peel and stick.
Whether you operate a small business and need labels for your products or just want to better organize things around the house, something like this can really come in handy. But does its practical value match its adorableness? Here's my Niimbot B21 review.
VERDICT: It may look like a novelty, but the B21 is a versatile and decidedly useful little labeler. It's equally well-suited to small-business tasks as it is to home organization. And look how cute!
- Gorgeous design
- Portable and rechargeable
- Works with a variety of label sizes and designs
- Auto-detects installed label type
- Drag-and-drop label design tool
- Not great with photos
- Subscription required for a few features (like OCR)
- Desktop app requires wired connection
I'm not sure what the B21 is meant to resemble, but it definitely has that retro-appliance vibe. Maybe an old-timey cash register? It's available in glossy white, green, red or black and weighs about 13 ounces, meaning it's quite portable (though it doesn't come with a carrying case).
To that end, the printer runs on a rechargeable battery that Niimbot says is good for about four hours. It charges via a USB-C port on the side, and while a charging cord is included, an AC adapter is not. As with many such devices these days, it's a bring-your-own USB Type-A port. (That could be anything from your laptop to a phone charger to a simple USB wall plug.)
The device pairs with your phone (Android or iPhone) via Bluetooth, a process I found quick and easy. There's also a Windows app you can download from Niimbot, but take note that this requires a wired connection; it doesn't support Bluetooth like the mobile apps.
Consequently, I focused most of my attention on the latter, as I suspect that's how most people will use the printer. I did briefly test the Windows app and found it relatively easy to use, though I struggled with font selection because there's no preview before you download each new one.
Thankfully, that's not the case in the iPhone app; there you can see what any given font looks like before you install it. Speaking of which, there are dozens to choose from; a smattering require "VIP" status, meaning a Niimbot subscription. This costs $4.99 monthly or $34.99 a year, and it entitles you to extra features, fonts, icons and templates, but I suspect most users won't need this.
The printer comes with a roll of 50x30mm white labels; Niimbot sells a couple dozen others, including round, transparent, dog-themed, name tag and more. What's nice is that the printer automatically detects what kind of label is installed and adjusts the app parameters accordingly.
Within that app you can create just about any label imaginable; it's a simple matter to drag and drop one or more elements: text, image, icon, barcode, QR code and so on. You can even pull data from external sources like Microsoft Excel.
Niimbot also supplies dozens of business-oriented templates for everything from bakeries to coffee shops to office assets. You can even create badges for, say, visitors to a company event.
Needless to say, the B21 is a surprisingly versatile little label maker. In my tests, it quickly and efficiently churned out all sorts of designs.
There's one important consideration, though: Because this is a monochrome printer, it produces only black. Thus, it's not great for photos, which really need shades of gray for accurate reproduction.
Even so, there's no question the Niimbot B21 is leaps and bounds ahead of those clunky old label makers with the tiny screens and single-line label strips. The fact that it looks really cool is just icing on the cake. If you need peel-and-stick labels for home or business and want a stylish way to produce them, you're sure to like this little machine.
