a modern photo experience that prints on thermal receipt paper. each receipt includes a unique qr code to view your digital image in full color.
we are building a new kind of photo booth — one that fits in cafes, galleries, shops, and bars. our hardware is designed to be beautiful, minimal, and completely self-contained.
every photo prints as a thermal receipt strip. crisp black lines on warm paper. a qr code links to the digital version — full color, shareable, permanent.
we want to bring people back to the moment. off the phone, into the room. a free photo, a physical artifact, a reason to look up.
Photos are captured and printed on-device. When you scan the QR code on your receipt, the full-color digital version is hosted in a protected environment on our platform. No one can access your photos without the unique short-code printed on your receipt.
No account is required to take a photo. No personal data is collected at the point of capture. The QR code contains a randomly generated short-code with no personally identifiable information embedded in the URL.
You can link photos to an account via phone number for easier access. Digital copies accessed through the QR link are retained for 90 days unless you save them to your account (subject to our retention policy).
Venue operators receive aggregate analytics only — total photo count, peak hours, and general engagement metrics. Individual photos are never visible to venue staff or Trace employees.
The Trace Studio enclosure is machined from 2mm aluminum sheet with a powder-coated finish. Dimensions are approximately 280mm × 220mm × 340mm. Total weight with all internal components is approximately 4.2kg.
The camera module is a wide-angle lens with automatic exposure and white balance. An integrated LED ring provides consistent, flattering illumination regardless of ambient lighting conditions. All lighting operates at color temperatures between 4000K–5000K.
Thermal printing is handled by a 576-dot/line thermal print head operating at 203 DPI. Receipt paper width is 80mm. Average print time from capture to complete receipt ejection is under 4 seconds.
Standard thermal paper rolls are 80mm wide and approximately 50 meters long, yielding roughly 600 prints per roll at typical receipt length. Replacing a roll takes under 10 seconds — open the front panel, drop in a new roll, close. No threading, no alignment, no tools. The device alerts operators automatically when paper is running low via the admin dashboard.
The Trace Studio runs custom firmware on a single-board computer. The capture pipeline processes each frame in real-time, applying a proprietary grayscale thermal filter that optimizes contrast and detail specifically for thermal paper output.
Each print includes a dynamically generated QR code linking to the full-color digital version of the photo. The digital page includes the original color image, venue branding, timestamp, and location metadata.
Venue operators can configure custom branding overlays, receipt header graphics, and welcome screen messaging through the remote administration platform. Changes propagate to devices over the air within seconds.
Fleet management is handled through a centralized admin dashboard. Operators can monitor device health, paper levels, print counts, error states, and connectivity status across all deployed units. Devices self-report metrics via encrypted heartbeat signals every 30 seconds.