One of the biggest drawbacks I see with this technology is that we cannot print color items with this. I think I have seen a blue thermal printout before. Can't really tell where since my mind wasn't that interested. The main challenge is the easy fading.
For a short lived print outs this is great. Yeah I also read somewhere that there were blue and red options. Maybe the chemical on the paper can be made in such a way that it turns to color when printed. It could be costly to implement.