The Toasty One is the first kitchen appliance from Tineco, a brand known primarily for its vacuum cleaners. A toaster at a premium price ($340) it could be the perfect match for your household. Or so one would assume for that much money. Is there enough here to justify the cost or would one be better served with a traditional unit?
Read on to learn more about the Tineco Toasty One and find out what I thought of it.
Inside the box was a cleaning brush, an instruction manual, and, of course, the toaster itself. Everything is packaged neatly and I was pleased to see there were no dents or scratches picked up while in transit.
The Toasty One is a smart toaster which means it does what every other standard toaster can but it’s also a little more interactive. For starters, there is a built-in 4” LCD touchscreen on the front of it where you do interact with the unit.
On this touchscreen you can create your own profile customized to how you like your toast done. Are you more of a lightly toasted person or do you prefer a little bit more crispiness to your daily bread?
The Tineco Toasty One is able to hold up to eight different profiles so it’s faster and more efficient for dealing with multiple people in a home. For instance, one piece of toast can be darker or in the toaster longer while the other pops out in a fraction of the time.
If you are not using the profile setting there is a slider on the display that you can use to manually adjust how toasted your bread gets. The screen also provides a nice visual indicator to show roughly what your toast will look like when it comes out.
Once the bread is inside the toaster there is a progress indicator on the LCD screen that shows how close it is to finishing the process. This is an interesting aspect as most toast is done in a few minutes and we tend to prepare the rest of our meal during the time. Knowing the exact length of time before your toast pops out is nice, but it’s never been a pain point.
There are two slots in the toaster that can both work independently from each other and both auto lift and lower the bread. A couple times when my bread was lifted out it seemed that one side of the bread got a little more heat than the other but there wasn’t a huge difference.
As a customer I would want my premium toaster to be able to toast all bread about as perfectly as can be. Similarly, there is no bagel mode present so you cannot toast the inside more than the outside or treat one side of the bread differently.
I will say that the look and build of the toaster itself is a sight to behold. It is a larger toaster and it gives off a bit of a 90’s vibe yet it retains the technology and modern day aesthetics.
The outside of the toaster never got hot in my testing so I feel comfortable placing it in the same places that the traditional toaster sits. Underneath there’s a crumb catcher that can be removed whenever you want, but the LCD screen can be used to notify you for cleaning if left untouched for an extended period of time.
The Tineco Toasty One has a 2-year limited warranty and feels like a quality device. I’ve been impressed with other Tineco products so I trust this one will be fine.
Conclusion
The Tineco Toasty One is no doubt a high-priced, solidly built toaster. And the smarts are nice to have. However, for this much money I struggle with recommending it for most homes. Even with a two-year warranty and a history of good devices, I’m reluctant to suggest anyone spend this kind of money on any toaster.
Any toaster can do the basic stuff and we’ve never really had an issue or problem with the way things were. We’ve never really worried about how much time is spent in the kitchen, waiting on toast to pop or wondering how much longer we have to stand by. Are we making something smart just because we can? Maybe that’s the case here. And really, most $50 toasters include a bagel setting.
Sure, dealing with multiple people at once is easier and more intuitive with the LCD display. And the reminders for cleaning out the crumb catcher is also a nice touch. I might like to see room for up to four pieces of toast at once, especially if it can support the different profiles. Otherwise, we might as well just rely on the manual slider or knob from a traditional device.
Is there anything here to justify its high price? I don’t think so. It is a step in the right direction for toasters and I am excited to see what Tineco does next in the kitchen space, but this first generation falls short in my eyes. In the meantime I would feel better recommending another toaster for your kitchen needs and saving the money.
