The design of the toaster has remained virtually unchanged in the 100 years since the pop-up version was first introduced. They are still built on temperature sensors and timers, despite the huge number of varieties of bread available today. This means that a standard toaster won't necessarily cook fruit bread or sourdough like a regular white slice.
Breville – the creators of some best coffee machines — believes it has come up with a solution in the form of the Breville Eye Q, a new toaster from an Australian brand that uses a patented optical sensor that determines the doneness of the toast based on the color of the bread. In other words, he uses “sight” to make the perfect toast.
According to Breville, the sensor “tracks” the slices up to 10 times per second, and once the desired level of browning is achieved, the bread will rise smoothly instead of popping out.
Plus, unlike other toasters, because cooking is based on color and not time, it won't burn or overcook the second (or third or fourth) batch of slices you put in the Eye Q. This can happen in standard toasters because the elements are already heated and toasting begins as soon as the slices are dropped into the slots.
There are seven settings shades to choose from, but you can also choose a “little more” color if you're not happy with the results (a feature already available in existing Breville toasters). The brand says you may have to experiment a little at first to determine what your ideal preference is, but they promise that your toast—whether it's white, multigrain, sourdough, raisin, rye, or bagel, crumpet or other custom bread—will never burn.
Watch this expensive toast
Breville told me that it took the company's engineers 10 years to create this toaster, and about five years ago they almost gave up due to the high cost of the technology at the time. The built-in optical sensors still make this a premium product – priced at $299.95 / £249.95 / AU$399.95 for the two-slice model and $399.95 / £349.95 / AU$599.95 for the four-slice model – this is undoubtedly the price for toast connoisseurs… if such people exist.
However, the use of an optical sensor in a toaster is certainly revolutionary, and interestingly, the Eye Q only uses one pair mounted on one side of the two-slice toaster, rather than both as I expected. This is because Breville says their research shows that most users will toast the same bread in both slots, so the sensor only needs to monitor one slice and the rest of the technology ensures even heating throughout. You can see the green sensor light flashing in the video clip below.
What's more, Breville says that if both walls had sensors, the toaster's footprint would increase, and the single-wall design allows the Eye Q to be slightly larger than most other standard two- or four-slice models.
If you want to toast one slice, Breville has thoughtfully marked where you need to place it. If you make the mistake of choosing a different one, you won't get the results you want and the toast will likely be a little undercooked.
For homemade bread, the Eye Q sensor is also programmed to use a special sourdough mode. This takes into account the thicker slices, crispier crust and denser bread of these loaves and automatically increases the browning time. To make the appearance of the toaster look neat and minimalistic, this function is available by long pressing the main control button.
The traditional defrost/reheat button has been replaced with a timed mode activated by double-pressing the main button, which allows users to set the time to reheat foods such as pies and baked goods.
Life Saving Feature
If you've ever danced with death by sticking a knife or other object into your toaster to free a stuck slice (there are about 700 toaster-related deaths each year), Breville has fixed that too with Eye Q. Not only are the slots slightly wider than a standard toaster, but the bread guides automatically (and smoothly) move down when you press the main control button. When the toast is done, it rises at the same speed and appears to be positioned higher inside the machine, so even shorter artisanal slices can be pulled out easily.
Cleaning has also become easier. The top of the toaster oven is made of non-stick ceramic-coated material and slopes inward, so you simply flick crumbs into slots where they collect into the Eye Q's universal crumb tray. Unlike other crumb trays in standard toasters, which only cover a narrow portion of the bottom of the unit, the Catch-All provides full coverage so virtually all leftovers fall off on it for cleaning.
No more burnt toast
So how does this play out in real-world testing? Well, first a full disclaimer: I am almost the perfect market for the Eye Q, as I stopped using a toaster a long time ago. I got tired of keeping an eye on the bread because the slices invariably ended up being overcooked for me. And if I walked away, my smoke alarm would probably go off. So my old toaster usually just sits on the shelf and gets used to maybe once a year when I treat myself to a bun.
I'm not going to say that Eye Q is the next best thing to sliced bread, but I now want to eat toast every morning – mainly because I can't stop watching the slices fall into the toaster and rise again (see video clip below). At the time of writing I have used it for seven days and this is the first time I have experimented with sourdough starter.
I like it lightly toasted, but even at the second stage the crust was overcooked. The following pieces were perfect for me when first setting up. Regular white bread toasts perfectly in the third stage. The raisin toast wasn't burnt at all. I'm now a toast convert!
As fantastic as a toaster is, its high price tag will likely put it out of reach for all but the most dedicated toast lovers. The Eye Q is available to buy now in Australia in four colorways – Black Truffle, Sea Salt, Stainless Steel and Noir (which replaces the white stripe at the bottom of the Black Truffle with a dark grey) – directly from Breville and official retailers. Availability of the Eye Q in the US and UK has yet to be confirmed, although Breville says it will hit shelves “before the end of the year.”
