The first time you try Breville's new high-tech toaster, do it in the dark. Along with the subtle green lights on the front face and the mellow orange glow of the wires, what will be impossible to miss are the rapidly blinking laser-green lights emanating from the left slot, disco dance style.

Behold! The Breville Eye Q toaster, which instead of using a traditional toaster timer, uses optic sensors to scan your toast 10 times a second, the company says. The toaster uses the green blinking lights to monitor the doneness of your toast as it toasts, bringing the proceedings to a halt as soon as the results are right where you’ve indicated you want them.

This means the toaster looks at your bread as it arrives in the slot, then toasts it to shades that are darker than that. (Curiously, Breville divides the doneness settings into seven progressively darker shades. Perhaps it's not 10 shades because everything past seven is just progressive shades of burnt?)

As we further explore this curious appliance, temporarily suppress the urge to say this is too much tech for toast, and appreciate that it's pretty impressive Breville has figured out how to cook this way.

If, by chance, you've used a toaster before, you'll find the design of the $300 Breville Eye Q 850 Auto 2 Slice and its $400 four-slot sibling easy to understand. Press the big button on the front and the bread glides down into the slots. ) Buttons on the left and right adjust between doneness levels.

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