The Consumer Electronics Show (now dubbed CES) has always been an event where companies large and small debut new products and demonstrate cutting-edge R&D. At its best, the show serves as a jumping-off point for the technologies, products, and services we'll see throughout the year. At its worst, it functions as a dumping ground for bad ideas and garbage products. At the show this week, Griffin Technology debuted a smart toaster as part of their new Griffin Home initiative.
In fairness to Griffin, a smart toaster is the kind of fusion device you might expect from a mythological lion-eagle hybrid with no opposable thumbs, seven hit dice, and a brain the approximate size of a heavily mutated walnut. I'll let the company explain from here(Opens in a new window):The next step in making mornings as streamlined as possible is the Connected Toaster, a full-featured digital toaster that helps users toast smarter. This Bluetooth-enabled smart toaster is controlled by a companion smartphone app to offer personalized settings for the perfect slice, every time. Connected Toaster is a two-slot toaster with digital temperature adjustment and settings for bread type, darkness, even gluten-free breads. Once you’ve dialed in your preferences, the app remembers how you like it. Connected Toaster links with other Griffin Home products for seamless integration into your daily routine.Hoo boy. Where to start?
SCRAWWWW!
When I was growing up, my parents had a toaster so old I think it might have been built by Jesus in his brief, unacknowledged foray into metalworking and electricity. Despite its age, it had an amazing feature -- it could remember, without fail, precisely what setting you had used to toast bread previously. It even had a color-coded label above the lever, to tell you how toasty your toast would be, in colors ranging from "Irish person sunbathing" to "Not even both hands and a flashlight can save you now."
Now, I admit, this analog lever had some limitations. It could only remember one setting at a time and it had security flaws -- a mischievous sibling could easily slide the lever to one extreme or the other and leave you fuming over your slightly crisped wheat bread or furnace-blasted hockey puck. Both issues could be solved by the application of the Mark I Eyeball and a post-it note for remembering which of your artisanal, free-range, quinoa-and-kale sorrow-loaves should be toasted at which setting.
The biggest problem with the Internet of Things, generally speaking, is that no one has figured out how to build products that actually do anything useful enough to justify their price tags or enormous security flaws. Silicon Valley has been a tremendous source of innovation over the past few decades, but not all innovations actually improve the product. And if that wasn't enough, what use is a toaster with Bluetooth, given that Bluetooth's effective range has been empirically measured as six feet less than you need it to be, no matter what the circumstances?
No, Griffin. I demand my smart toaster use 802.11ad. Save the Bluetooth for the optional pairing with Apple's AirPods, so I can record and listen to the sound of my bread toasting while I'm searching for apps to install on my toaster's LCD. And maybe pack some LEDs in there while you're at it.
The current, Bluetooth-only version of this abomination will sell for $100.
