This absurd smart toaster serves up the forecast on rye

Have you ever checked the weather app on your phone and thought to yourself, “This smartphone forecast business is madness! I wish I could read the weather on a piece of toast!”?

Yeah, me neither. That’s why I’m in no rush to trade my regular toaster in for the Toasteroid smart toaster, which can print the day’s weather forecast, messages, or doodles onto a piece of toast.

It might just sound like I hate fun, but Toasteroid is a half-baked idea that requires too much effort to use, and costs too much to buy.

Sure, the idea of sending messages to your family sounds cute. But in reality, it's just a lot of work: Before you can toast, you have to use the Toasteroid app to select your desired level of browning or create a design. If I'm checking the weather on my phone anyway, Toasteroid loses what little utility it had in the first place.

The gadget, which bills itself as the “first app-controlled smart image toaster,” is currently seeking backers on Kickstarter. The Toasteroid Mini, a more compact version of the Toasteroid that can toast two slices at once but only print on one of them, costs a minimum of a $59 pledge. If you want the full-fledged Toasteroid, which can print on two slices at once, it’ll require a pledge of at least $79. {{ amazon name="The Selfie Toaster", asin="B00OZ4TDC8", align="right" }}

The device brings to mind the infamous selfie toaster from Vermont Novelty Toaster Corp, which allows you to burn an image of your face onto your bread. Only, you know, a little less creepy.

Either way, that's a lot of cash for something we’d maybe use to send the occasional cute (or passive-aggressive) note. Call me boring, but I think I’ll manage with paper and pen, the power of speech, and text messaging at my disposal.

And as for the weather forecast? There’s an app for that. A free one. No toasting required.

Now that’s something we’ll toast to.

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