I don't know about toaster ovens but I've been considering if people would start building 'smart appliances' but with stock open source software. Eg A 'smart tv' with stock linux or something like that.
For eg. I like Amazon echo as a device, but I don't like the Amazon software ecosystem around it. Could you produce an open device with the same hardware capabilities?
Oh my god, yes. I will buy a dishwasher if the controls are just a plain old ladder-logic PLC or something equivalently hackable.
All I want is to tweak a few programs according to my relative cost of water vs energy, my personal value of time, my typical dish dirtiness, etc. The built-in programs make all the wrong assumptions.
There's no reason I should need to contact a server in Virginia, much less China, to do that.
Also, to OP's point, a narrow-slot toaster. I don't eat bagels or texas toast, I don't need wide-slots that waste energy and take longer. I just want a plain old single-function narrow slot toaster, which is apparently even more rare than the mythical single-roll of toilet paper. I would _happily_ pay 5x for one made in the USA.
