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I’ve Been Using a $280 Smart Toaster for Months — Here’s My Honest Review

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I had the same toaster for about five years. It was a behemoth, four-slot model I picked up for about $5 at a Goodwill a few days after I graduated college and moved into my first apartment. It worked great. Until, one day, it didn’t; it just stopped.

This was a problem because I use a toaster daily — and so does my husband. Needless to say, it was time for an upgrade. Which is how we landed on the Revolution Cooking Toaster .

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Now, I’m a fan of “smart” things. Smart phones, smart ovens , smart fire alarms, and smart devices that tell me what the day’s weather is when I ask. So when I read that the Revolution Cooking Toaster features “smart technology” that, according to the product’s listing , “toasts bread in a fraction of the time, locking in flavor and producing your preferred browning and level of crispness,” I was interested. And now I’ve been using the toaster for more than four months. Here’s my honest review of it.

Credit: Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm

Behold!

How Easy Is It to Use?

You might be thinking, is any toaster really that hard to use? Not really, but this toaster is next-level. Instead of any knobs, levers, or buttons, it has an intuitive touchscreen. The touchscreen allows you to select from bread, bagel, waffle, English muffin, or toaster pastry, and to indicate whether you’re toasting something that’s fresh or frozen. The screen also has a scale of dots that go from light to dark and tapping one of these will change the shade and crispness of your bread or pastry. Depending on what you choose, the toaster’s sensors calibrate the toaster’s temperature and voltage type.

I love placing bread into the toaster’s slot, tapping my selections, and watching the toaster slowly lower the bread into its slots. When the toaster’s not in use, the screen displays the time and date. It has another super helpful feature, too: It tells you when it’s time to empty the crumb tray — and the tray pops right out of the base. A toaster that almost cleans itself? Yes!

Credit: Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm

The aforementioned crumb tray.

How Well Does it Work?

My favorite thing about this toaster is how quick it is. I timed how long it took the machine to toast two pieces of bread on the “4” (medium) setting: 1 minute 36 seconds. That’s way faster than any toaster or toaster oven I’ve ever used. And the toast emerges perfectly golden. I will say, though, if you like darker toast or even a more medium shade of medium, the toaster errs on the lighter side, so I would suggest always “sizing up” a shade.

So, Should I Get One?

I do wish the Revolution Cooking Toaster had Wi-Fi capabilities so I could control it from my phone or so that the date and time would be automatically updated if, say, the power goes out for a couple of hours. (How smart are you if you don’t have Wi-Fi these days?) That being said, I do love it. It’s absolutely expensive and extra, but if you love bread and want to invest in a next-level toaster, it’s definitely worth considering.

Do you have a favorite toaster? Let us know in the comments!

Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm

Lifestyle Editor, Tools

Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm is the Tools Editor at The Kitchn. A professional kitchen equipment tester, she's worked for America's Test Kitchen, EatingWell, and Food52. Her goal: to find the best gear for your kitchen so you don't waste time or money on anything else. She lives in Boston, MA with her two dogs.

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Source : food