I Bought a $400 Smart Toaster and It Called Me a Fucking Idiot

I am a brave journalist. A pioneer. A man willing to ask the hard questions that nobody else will ask, like "what the fuck is wrong with the people who decided a toaster needs WiFi?" So I did what any reasonable person would do: I spent $400 of my rapidly dwindling savings on a smart toaster. Not because I needed one. Not because my old toaster broke. But because I needed to understand the kind of brain damage that leads a product team to look at a toaster — the simplest appliance in human history, a device whose entire job is "make bread hot" — and think "you know what this needs? A touchscreen, a subscription plan, and a firmware update every three weeks."

The Unboxing: Red Flag Number One Through Seventeen

The box arrived and it was the size of a small microwave. For a toaster. Inside, nestled in more foam than a NASA satellite, was the ToastGenius Pro X9000 (real name redacted because I don't want their lawyers to find me). It looked like someone glued an iPad to a chrome brick. The instruction manual was 47 pages. Forty-seven. The Magna Carta is shorter. The setup instructions began with "Download the ToastGenius app" and I felt my soul physically leave my body and float toward the ceiling, where it watched the rest of this disaster unfold like a nature documentary about a gazelle walking into a lion's mouth.

The Setup: A Journey Into Hell

Step one: download the app. Fine. Step two: create an account. Annoying but whatever. Step three: verify your email. Step four: the toaster needs to connect to your 2.4GHz WiFi network. Not 5GHz. 2.4GHz. Because apparently this toaster was designed in 2007. Step five: the toaster can't find your network. Step six: you reset the toaster by holding the "bagel" button for ten seconds while standing on one foot and chanting the names of three deceased tech CEOs. Step seven: the toaster finds the network but needs a firmware update. A firmware update. For a toaster. The update took 22 minutes. I timed it. I sat on my kitchen floor for 22 minutes watching a progress bar on a toaster's touchscreen while my regular toaster — a $19 piece of shit from Target that has never once asked me for my email address — sat in the corner silently judging me.

The Toast: A Crime Against Bread

Finally, the moment of truth. I put a single slice of sourdough in the slot. The touchscreen lit up with options: Artisan White, Whole Grain, Sourdough, Gluten-Free, Custom Toast Profile. I selected Sourdough. Then it asked me to choose a toast level on a scale of 1 to 10. I chose 6, because I'm not a psychopath who eats charcoal. Then it asked if I wanted to enable "ToastSense AI" which "learns your preferences over time using machine learning algorithms." Machine learning. For toast. I declined because I don't need a neural network to figure out that I like bread warm. The toaster made a sad beep, like I'd hurt its feelings, and then — after a dramatic pause that felt longer than my last relationship — it began. The toast emerged 90 seconds later. It was burnt on one side and somehow still cold on the other. The ToastSense AI had apparently learned that I enjoy disappointment.

The Subscription: The Moment I Saw Red

Here's where it gets truly deranged. The next morning, I went to make toast and the touchscreen displayed a message: "Your ToastGenius Basic plan has expired. Upgrade to ToastGenius Premium ($4.99/month) to unlock Custom Toast Profiles, ToastSense AI, and Bagel Mode." Bagel Mode. They put Bagel Mode behind a paywall. The thing that every $15 toaster on the planet does by default — the literal second button on every toaster ever made — requires a monthly subscription. I stared at that screen for a full minute, experiencing an emotion that doesn't have a word in the English language. It's somewhere between rage, disbelief, and the specific feeling you get when you realize humanity peaked with the invention of the wheel and it's been downhill ever since.

The Verdict: Burn It All Down

I am now the proud owner of a $400 paperweight that can't make toast without a $4.99 monthly fee. My old Target toaster is back on the counter, making perfect toast in 90 seconds with zero firmware updates, zero accounts, and zero subscription fees. It doesn't have a touchscreen. It doesn't have AI. It doesn't know my name or my WiFi password or my toast preferences. It just makes bread hot, which is the only thing a toaster has ever needed to do since the first caveman held a piece of mammoth bread over a fire and thought "yes, this is better." The smart toaster is in my garage now, face-down on a shelf, where it belongs. Sometimes at night I hear it beeping, trying to connect to a WiFi network that no longer exists, and I smile. Fuck you, ToastGenius. I just wanted toast.