One day, long long ago toasters were invented. People rejoiced across the land, for now their slightly stale bread could be given a new lease of life and turned into slices of crunchy, golden deliciousness.

No more would bread fall off toasting forks onto the fire or smoke alarms be triggered by blackened slices forgotten about under the grill. Okay, maybe some smoke alarms would be triggered.

Fast-forwarding to modern times, we’ve now entered a new toasting age. An age (especially across the pond on American shores) where toasters can be controlled by apps or create toasty art. These toasters aren’t essential. Some of them aren’t even that useful. But none the less we still want to own them.

Griffin’s Connected Toaster

Let’s start with the Connected Toaster, unveiled earlier this year at CES. This app-controlled toaster remembers exactly how brown you like your toast and you can control it from around your home. So in principle, you can prepare your breakfast without even having to get out of bed.

The only problem is you’d need to put the bread in the toaster the night before, which isn’t ideal.  Not to mention that traditional toasters remember your ideal toasty-ness too with the simple addition of a temperature dial. But let’s face it, that’s not anywhere near as fun.

Toasteroid

This brilliant Kickstarter funded project isn’t quite on the market yet, but it’s just around the corner. It’s in production as we type. Like the Connected Toaster the Toasteroid is app-controlled, but also has a whole bunch of pretty thrilling extra features. You can:

• Draw your own picture that will be transferred to your toast.
• Send a message to be printed on your family member’s toast.
• Print the weather forecast into your toast.

You can also reheat and defrost your bread (just like a normal toaster) using an app (less like a normal toaster).

Pretty cool, no?

Selfie Toaster

People love selfies. People also love toast. So put the two together (by printing the selfie on the toast) and you’ve got yourself an ingenious idea. Well, other than the slight self-cannibalism undertones.

This toaster isn’t quite as futuristic as it sounds. Your toaster doesn’t take the selfie, you send it to Burnt Impressions the inventors and they use it to create a toaster insert instead. Still, this creation could make for a lot of fun if you offer your friends some brunch and surprise them with your buttered visage.

For less egocentric types there are a whole host of other inserts available from dolphins to desert islands.

Smart Toast Toaster

Usually, when people talk about smart appliances they mean internet-enabled machines that can be controlled by a smartphone. But this particular Sage Smart Toaster is smart in a different sense.

This nifty gadget lets you raise and lower your toast during the toasting process so you can have a sneak peek at how it’s getting on. Ideal if you know the exact shade of brown your heart desires. The toaster even has a setting specifically for fruit bread so no more burnt raisins.

We’ll toast to that.

Morphy Richards Glass Toaster

Have you ever looked at a toaster and thought, wouldn’t it be handy if it was made of glass so you can see how the toast is getting on? Breaking news! The very toaster of your musings actually exists. The day of the see-through toaster is here.

Morphy Richards’ Glass Toaster uses something they call “thermoglass technology” which lets you see when your toast is ready with your very own eyes! We’re in the future.

So are these inventions the best thing since sliced bread? Or do they make you say, “Oh crumbs, not another gimmick”? Join the toaster talk in the comments!

Tags: Kitchen Appliances, Smart Toasters, Toaster Tips