Send A Smell Via A Text Message With oPhone

Nowadays smartphones provide a variety of stimulation for some of our senses whether it be hearing the voices of our family from the other side of the world and listening to music, or feasting our eyes on photos, videos and games. Yet now our noses could be about to see some action too thank to this Bluetooth enabled odor emitting device, which allows the user to send a smell via a text message or email.

Called the oPhone, this device can send odours or “oNotes”. Developed at Vapour Communications, it was created by the Harvard Professor David Edwards and two of his students at Le Laboratorie in Paris.

The science team have been able to deconstruct scents like coffee and arrange these molecules to develop an aromatic profile. The oPhone has four custom-designed ‘oChips’ built into it, so that the device can translate these profiles in to actual smells. The four chips work together to create thousands of different scents, which are released into the air, reaching an area of about six inches in diameter and hang around for between 20 and 30 seconds.

The team are hoping that the oPhone will have appeal for perfume companies and coffee vendors, enabling online shoppers to smell before they buy. Hopefully they also have an advantage of the competition. Chat Perf, released last year, is an attachment for the iPhone and sends out odours via text message and email just like oPhone. However, the oPhone has a bigger array of smells and is a little more spontaneous when compared to Chat Perf.

A beta version of oPhone is set to be released at the end of this year, so expect to see the full version in 2015.

[Image via Vapour Communications]

SOURCE: http://www.gizmag.com/ophone-text-email-odor/30834/