The convergence of technology and scent is not a new thing, but the lack of wider adoption was due more to perspective than offerings. For years, many considered smell the least important of the senses.however, the metaverse has a vested interest in incorporating it.
A 2018 study of British millennials found that the 64% he would rather sacrifice his sense of smell than his smartphone. But during the pandemic, due to the sometimes debilitating effect of the virus on our sense of smell, this changed.
In the absence of smell, people gained a new appreciation for what their more than 400 olfactory receptors brought to their lived experience: the memories that the smell evokesits psychological impact and the exceptionally strong interaction between smell and taste.
Today, as the engineers, designers, and architects of the metaverse plot what the future digital experiencesFor some, smell has become a key part of the puzzle. Who first defines the smell-verse will lead this nascent category, which means smell is ON.
Meet the companies trying to bring scent or the “sense of smell” to the metaverse
OVR is one of many players in the digital scent space. Maybe the smell-verse hardware More interesting is cooking in Jas Brooks’s Chicago lab. The doctoral student’s Bluetooth device is placed on the septum and sends out small electrical pulses that stimulate the trigeminal nerve (the cranial nerve that transmits facial sensations) to create directional information about a scent for the user.
In the UK, there’s OW Smell Digital, which raised $1.2 million to develop a cloud-based, AI-powered “Photoshop to Smell” service.
In Spain, Olorama Technology has developed a library of 400 scents (fragrances include “pastry”, “mojito”, and “wet earth”) that are delivered via scent-releasing boxes, many of which can be voice-activated by the wearer.
However, Yash Patel, a general partner at Telstra Ventures that invests in Web3 startups, sees the integrated scent as a distraction from the bigger picture.
“The metaverse won’t be hardware-driven,” he says; on their timeline, interoperability comes first, then better devices come, and only then will there be room to develop immersive plugins.
Another player in the digital scent space is Virtual Hypnos, based in Arkansas. His approach is twofold: on the hardware side, the company has a connected nebulizer, pre-filled with aromas collected through a cold diffusion process to maintain the purity of the ingredients. Its software combines them, based on data inputs, and releases them at select times, chosen through its internal “smell poets” or through its artificial intelligence.
Thus, most of the metaverse will be developed by software engineers who, while skilled at their jobs, lack the nuanced knowledge of smell. Recognizing this, many have brought in outside experts such as fashion designers to Metaverse Fashion Week and hire great architects in the creation of cities.
With this in mind, perhaps the “scent choreographer” job will soon be part of the metaverse’s hiring boom.
Related Notes:
Health shows the “creativity” with which they solve shortcomings of public hospitals in Mexico
Why are Cuban doctors said to be the best in the world? It…
Three-year-old boy dies at CDMX La Raza Hospital from acute hepatitis