Do The Numbers On Toaster Dials Mean Minutes

There s been a Life Pro Tip going around the internet lately saying that the numbers on toaster dials are actually minutes. I was so sure it was false. Oh, I was so sure. I got four toasters set to 2, and I had one take to film it all in a back room at my office. This is that one take. Thanks to Dan W (iamdanw) on camera and Jonty (jonty) on toasterwrangling UPDATE: An error pointed out by a couple of folks in the comments: modern toasters likely don t use bimetallic strips. They either use a capacitor charged through a variable resistor, or specialised silicon. See this great Technology Connections video. There s now a full corrections page for this channel at