Having your smartphone recreate the smell of bacon sizzling on the hob; a wild-flower meadow in summer; or a bubbling pan of mulled wine, might not be at the top of your wishlist for new technology.
But that has not deterred Nesta, the “innovation charity that helps bring great ideas to life”, from declaring scent transmission to be one of its top 10 predictions for 2015.
It is already technically possible to send the aroma of freshly baked bread along with a picture of the loaf that has just been plucked from the oven to a friend’s smartphone – as long as it has an attachment called the Scentee. But Nesta reckons that next year will be the moment when the technology really takes off.
Adrian Cheok, professor of pervasive computing at City University in London, was responsible for the technology behind Scentee. It plugs into a smartphone’s headphone socket and uses alcohol-based aroma cartridges to emit a puff of vapour after being triggered by a signal.
The scientist is also working on a way of avoiding the need to use chemicals and cartridges to achieve the same goal. However, it involves an electronic mouthguard that sits in the back of the user’s throat to stimulate the olfactory bulb. Marketing such a device could be a tricky sell.
Nesta also mentions the oPhone as further evidence that scent transmission is about to go mainstream. The pipe-shaped device allows scent messages, or oNotes, to be sent from an app called – you guessed it – oSnap.
It is about half a century after Smell-O-Vision – and its lesser-known rival AromaRama – failed to convince cinema goers (and owners) that scented movies were the way of the future. Indeed Smell-O-Vision made it into Time magazine’s list of the 100 worst ideas of all time in 2000.
Whether Scentee and its rivals are destined to meet the same fate remains to be seen – or rather, smelled.
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