Compatible third-party hardware

The ecosystem plays well with hardware it didn’t make. This page is the growing list of third-party devices that connect, one way or another — it will keep expanding as development continues and as more makers plug their gear in.

Device	Maker	What it does	Works with
ACR122U NFC reader	ACS	USB NFC reader/writer — scan a chip and the spool auto-opens; guided, UID-checked writes. Two of them power a TigerPOD	Tiger Studio
TD-1 filament analyzer	AJAX-3D	DIY build — measures a filament’s Transmission Distance (the HueForge / Full Spectrum printing value) + color (RGB, 1–3 slots, indicative)	Tiger Studio · Tiger NFC Connect (USB-C)
TD1s filament analyzer	AJAX-3D	Same device family, pre-assembled and ready out of the box	Tiger Studio · Tiger NFC Connect (USB-C)
DYMO M series USB scales (M5, M10, M25…)	DYMO	Standard USB “HID Scale” devices — live weight into the spool’s profile (protocol details)	Tiger Studio
Any HID Scale-compliant USB scale	any	Same standard protocol as the DYMO M series (HID usage page `0x8D`) — brand doesn’t matter	Tiger Studio
Any blank NTAG213/215/216 chip	any	The consumable itself — bought anywhere, works identically (which chip?)	Everything

The ACR122U reader (two of them live inside every TigerPOD) · the AJAX-3D TD1s · a DYMO M-series USB scale · the chip itself, antenna bared.

The TD1s at work inside Tiger Studio.

Measured values don’t stay in the device: a TD or a weight lands in the spool’s profile and can live in the TigerTag protocol itself — on the chip, or in a .ttag file.

Readers built by other people

Some makers build their own readers that speak TigerTag directly, without any of our software in the loop. BambuTagger (bambutagger.de) is a German open-source project publishing ESP32-based spool readers — sources on GitHub, printable cases, PCB files and firmware, all free. Two of its devices declare TigerTag support:

Device	What it is	What it does with TigerTag
BT-Touch	A battery-powered unit with a 5″ 800×480 touchscreen — ESP32-S3 and one RC522 reader — storing over 2000 tags locally	Reads, clones and writes TigerTag, alongside Bambu Lab, Spoolease, OpenSpool and OpenTag3D tags
BT-AMS-C	A four-slot reader that mounts on a Bambu Lab AMS — ESP32 with 4× RC522, OLED and TFT displays, addressable LEDs. Shows live AMS slot data and sends tag data to the printer / BMCU	Reads the same five tag families, one per slot

Two things worth being precise about.

These are compatible, not certified. A third party may say “compatible with TigerTag” freely and without asking anyone — that is exactly what this is, and it is the whole point of an open format. It is not certified: certification is an audit that TigerSystem grants, and neither device has been through one. The difference is explained in the trademark policy.

Cloning a chip is not a hole in the format. A standard TigerTag carries no authentication and is never write-locked, so copying one is expected — it is the same property that lets you rewrite your own chips. What a copy cannot carry is a valid TigerTag+ signature: a cloned tag fails verification on the customer’s own phone, offline.

That devices like these exist without us is the measure of the format: nothing was asked of us, no key was needed, no agreement was signed.

Your hardware here

Building or connecting a device? The protocol is open, the SDKs are ready, and TigerTag Certified exists for verified integrations. Tell us on the Discord or at tigertag@tigertag.io — this list is meant to grow.