Hi Alan,

Seems to me that as a practical matter that might be hard to do without losing the ability to toast as little or more as you like, given the current method we use for toasting. Here we have a rapid temperature rise in the device where the exposure time is key to the doneness if you like of the toast target. So a thermal protection device alone it seems to me would not work and still enable one to control the amount of the resultant "toasting". I can imagine the same problem with an oven, we could put in a thermal cutoff but still have a problem if we leave the oven on for too long. Same thing with leaving food unattended and untimed on a surface burner. I believe most if not all toaster manufacturers warn against leaving toasters in use unattended. There is a reason for that. They are not designed to acuate with product in them to be toasted and left unattended due to the inherent hazard.