Laberty Screen: a touchscreen, knob or sign by the printer

A Laberty Screen sits next to the printer. At a glance it shows:

whether the print bridge is running, and whether the printer is ready
the roll loaded in the printer, and whether it's Confirmed or Not sure. Tap the roll you put in to select it, then press the device's confirm button to confirm it for sure. A tap on its own never confirms a roll: on a screen with no confirm button, its Confirm records the roll as not sure
jobs printing, printed and failed, with Retry or Cancel
labels ready to print, for example "3 labels ready to print — load Large Address (208)", with Print and Skip
the next few birthdays and anniversaries, and when each label goes out

Screens come with the print bridge, so they need Home or Business and a running print bridge. A screen never counts against your plan's API actions.

Four kinds of device

Every kind uses the same connection to Laberty. Pick the one that suits the spot.

Device	What it does	Board
Touchscreen	Five tabs: Home, Jobs, Ready, Occasions, Printer	Elecrow CrowPanel 7" Basic, CrowPanel Advance 5", or any tablet
Rotary knob	Turn to pick a waiting label, press to print, hold to skip. The ring shows status	Elecrow CrowPanel rotary knob display
E-ink sign	Always on. Shows the bridge, printer, roll, labels waiting and the next three occasions. Redraws only when something changes	Elecrow CrowPanel 4.2" e-paper
Two buttons	An LED blinks when labels are waiting. One button prints, the other skips	Any ESP32, two buttons and an LED

None of these boards has an Ethernet port. They use Wi-Fi and USB-C power. For a single cable, a PoE-to-USB-C splitter powers the board from a PoE switch port, but the network still goes over Wi-Fi.

The firmware for each board is in hardware/laberty-screen/ in the Laberty repository, with a README listing prices and what has and hasn't been tried on real hardware.

No hardware? Use a tablet

Open laberty.app/screen on any tablet, old phone or computer and paste a screen key. It's the touchscreen, full size. The gear button also previews the knob, the e-ink sign and the two-button box, so you can try each one before buying a board.

Adding a screen

Go to Admin → Devices and start a New device.
Type where it is, like "Kitchen screen", and pick which device.
Save it. Laberty shows the screen key once. Copy it straight away.
On a tablet, open /screen and paste the key. For a board, copy secrets.yaml.example to secrets.yaml in the firmware folder, fill in your Wi-Fi, paste the two lines Laberty shows, and run esphome run with that device's file.

Lost the key? Revoke the screen and add it again. Keys never expire.

Labels that wait for you

Occasion labels can wait on the screen instead of printing on their own. On Admin → Printers & stock, under Occasion labels on the print agent, choose one of three:

Don't print them. They're emailed to the member only.
Print them right away. Nobody touches anything.
Hold them until someone presses Print. Each label waits, marked with the roll it was made for.

When labels are held, the admins get one email a day at most: "N labels ready to print — load Large Address (208)". Put that roll in, then press Print on the screen, or on Admin → Print bridge under Ready to print. Skip drops a label without printing it.

If something else is loaded, the screen says "Load Large Address (208) first" and offers Print anyway or Swap roll.

Pressing Print on the member's iPad is never held. It still prints straight away.

Sleep, wake and quiet hours

Each screen's settings live on Admin → Devices and reach the screen on its next check-in. There's nothing to reflash.

Screen on. Untick it to keep the screen dark. It can't print or skip while it's off.
Sleep after. The screen goes dark after this many seconds untouched. A touch wakes it, and that touch does nothing else. 0 means never.
Wakes on its own when new labels are waiting or a print fails.
Quiet hours. For example 21:30 to 06:30, in your account's time zone. During quiet hours the screen never wakes on its own and sleeps after 30 seconds.
Check every. How often the screen asks Laberty for news. 15 seconds suits a touchscreen, 60 an e-ink sign.

Admin → Devices shows each screen as online or offline, with when it last checked in.

Security

A screen key can reach only the screen's own endpoints. It can't read households or addresses, and it can't send print jobs of its own. It can print, skip, retry or cancel jobs already in the queue, and swap the recorded roll.
A screen shows names and label titles, never street addresses.
On a tablet, the key is kept only in that browser.
Revoke on Admin → Devices stops a screen on its next check-in.

Troubleshooting

"This screen key no longer works". The screen was revoked. Add it again for a new key.
"Laberty Screens come with the print bridge, which needs a paid plan". Screens need Home or Business.
The screen says the bridge is offline. Check the bridge itself. See Nothing printed.
A board shows nothing. Check its README notes on flash size and backlight. These boards are new and some settings vary by hardware revision.