This IoT “Toaster” Pops Out New Recipes

Like millions of people around the world, you may have gotten up this morning and inserted a few pieces of bread into a toaster to help start your day. Ian Sunyecz’s Recipie of the Day Toaster, however, has no coils for toasting nor does it (willingly) accept bread, waffles, bagels, or anything else to be heated. Instead, it uses a thermal printer to produce recipes on a small sheet of paper.

Inside this appliance — or 3D-printed model thereof — is a Raspberry Pi Zero W and a thermal printer. When activated by pressing down on a spring-loaded handle, it uses the spoonacular.com API to scour the Internet for interesting recipes, then prints them out after a few seconds of “toasting.” An LED on the side gives an indication of when it’s working, in case you wonder if it’s actually preparing your next meal idea.

The paper that pops out looks like a receipt, with a recipe title, cook time, and “Spoonacular Score” to give you some idea of what you’re getting into. Below this, there’s a QR code that you can scan to take you directly to the source website. It’s a fun and well designed little gadget, and apparently quite useful as well. Sunyecz finds himself “pressing the toaster handle at least three times a day, once for each meal, just to see what recipe pops up.”