"Stay on target…" - A toaster oven without a stay on feature

October 14, 2016 7:14 AM

Please recommend a toaster oven available in the US market without a stay on feature.

The kitchen area at my office needs a new toaster oven. I'd prefer one that can't be accidentally left on overnight, but it seems like all the toaster ovens I can find have the stay on feature at the end of the timer dial. I'd like to spend less than $100, and preferably less than $50.

posted by zamboni to Shopping (9 answers total)

Don't know about a toaster oven model, but there's a different solution: where I work the coffee maker is connected to a timer that simply makes sure it is off between 5pm and 8am. You'd need to make sure the capacity of the timer was appropriate.
posted by BillMcMurdo at 7:40 AM on October 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

Best answer: Try looking at things geared towards the elderly or disabled. From this article they have several options that automatically shut off after 30 or 60 minutes. This one from that list is the best cost-wise, at $68, and it auto shuts off after and hour. The con, however, is that there isn't a timer, it's just "light/medium/dark".
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:46 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: It blows your budget, but I have this Breville that meets your functional description, is a pleasure to use, and will likely far outlast a $50 unit that might have you asking this question again in 6 months.
posted by contraption at 9:27 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I have a Black and Decker similar to this one (mine's been discontinued, I think), and haven't ever found a way to leave it on indefinitely; all the bake and toast settings are timed, and when the time is up, it turns off.
posted by specialagentwebb at 9:27 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

A programmable timer on the outlet is probably the easiest solution here, no?
posted by uberchet at 9:40 AM on October 14, 2016

Best answer: Programmable timers can be fiddly things, and it takes a certain degree of motivation to learn how to use one. Any office is going to have a cohort whose video recorders constantly flash 00:00; none of these people will ever learn how to program the timer, though almost all of them will be perfectly capable of pressing its buttons at random and destroying its programming, or unplugging it and bypassing it, if it ever stops them doing something they want to do - which it surely eventually will.

The point of not having a "stay on" feature is to make staying on for longer than some preset period impossible. A programmable timer between the oven and the mains won't do that; it will merely make not staying on possible - which it already is, if you simply fail to exercise the "stay on" feature.
posted by flabdablet at 10:21 AM on October 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: A programmable timer on the outlet is probably the easiest solution here, no?

For reasons that do not need explaining at this juncture (although flabdablet has covered most of them), a programmable timer is not a suitable solution for this particular application.
posted by zamboni at 11:34 AM on October 14, 2016

I came in to recommend the breville also. We have the midsize version and basically every kind of cycle is timed, there's no way to just turn it on and leave it on.
posted by cabingirl at 12:04 PM on October 14, 2016

I have this Panasonic toaster oven and it also has no "stay on" function; everything is timed. It works well, but also slightly overshoots your $100 budget.
posted by Aleyn at 3:47 PM on October 14, 2016