GoKawiilIt may not seem like much, but a slice of toast is often the subtle touch a meal needs — one reason toasters remain a mainstay in many kitchens, even in the age of air fryers and toaster ovens. While it’s certainly a more convenient option than making toast in a pan, it’s not always easy to lock in your preferred doneness. Toasters typically monitor doneness in two ways: time and temperature.
That said, most people use one method, but few toasters use a third: visual doneness. Enter the recently launched Breville Eye Q 850 Auto Toaster. It uses a pulsing internal sensor to watch the color of the bread as it toasts, only finishing when it hits the perfect result, at least in theory. I put the theory to the test over the last month with a sample from Breville to see if this $300 high-tech toaster lives up to its promise. While I generally think it does, I noticed a few things that are worth considering. Let’s dig in.
What makes the Breville Eye Q Auto Toaster different?
An optic sensor seems like a good way to ensure your toast always reaches the right doneness without tweaking settings between batches. John Carlsen/CNET
At first glance, the Breville Eye Q Auto Toaster looks like any other high-end toaster — my test sample featured a matte black brushed stainless steel case and a ceramic top portion. But the real magic happens when you start the toast cycle. The Eye Q lowers the bread, and a green light inside the toaster begins to flash. This Eye Q Optic Sensor reminds me of something you’d see on fitness trackers, but instead of tracking a pulse, it monitors the bread’s visual doneness.
The sensor is only in the left-side slot, so you can toast a single slice, which I think is very helpful. Importantly, the toaster won’t run without something inside, which is a great safety feature. Like most premium toasters, this Breville unit uses a motorized lift to lower and raise your bread. It won’t pop up with a spring-loaded mechanism as on a typical toaster. It will, however, play a little chime at the beginning and end of each toasting cycle — the volume is adjustable, so you can turn it off or up depending on your needs.
I found the controls fairly intuitive once I figured out how to activate each mode, like timer mode. John Carlsen/CNET
Five buttons on the unit start/stop the toasting process, adjust the doneness, toggle bagel and English muffin modes, and trigger a feature called A Bit More. Most notably, the start button selects the operation: One press toasts normal bread, a long press does the same for sourdough, and two presses switch on the timer mode for things like Pop-Tarts.
I’m a huge fan of the power cord storage slot on the bottom of the unit, which holds the cord when you need to put the toaster away. This saves you from having to wrangle the cord another way. The crumb tray is completely removable, making the Breville Eye Q Auto Toaster fairly easy to clean out. However, the tray isn’t dishwasher safe, so you’ll need to wipe off the old crumbs with a cloth instead. I doubt there’s much else to say about the tech in this toaster without digging into its performance, so let’s jump into my tests.
My time with the Breville Eye Q
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