An attempt to add natural smells to virtual reality

Startup Feelreal is trying to realize the long-expressed idea to make virtual reality even more real. The team’s engineers are working on a special mask worn by the player in a VR game along with glasses like Oculus Rift, which can emit various odors during the gameplay. In addition, some other weather and thermal effects are supported, turning the mask into a kind of “7-D movie theaters”, which try to surprise the viewer with water splashes and gusts of wind while watching adapted films.



The gadget that makes the player look like Darth Vader contains a replaceable cartridge with a prepared set of odors. Depending on the settings of a particular game and their own preferences, the player will be able to feel the aromas of the ocean, the jungle, fire, grass, dust, flowers and metal. For added realism, the mask includes small heat sources, fans, “water sprayers”, vibration motors and a microphone. In addition to games, a special Feelreal player is being developed at startup, on which it will be possible to watch movies adapted for the gadget.

TheVerge reporters were able to try out the new product. Edie Robertson describedtheir feelings as, to put it mildly, contradictory. He moved in a specially prepared demo game in which most locations for the main smells were prepared. According to Roberston, the mask creates sensations that are quite far from natural. For example, being close to some “hot object” leads to the fact that at a close range, hot air starts blowing in the face like from a hair dryer, creating even discomfort. After testing, Robertson noted that being in a Feelreal mask was like unusual and brutal torture.

Experiments with bringing olfactory and even taste sensations into virtual reality are far from new. In 2010, Japanese researchers with the help of VR glasses and an odor generator were able to deceive the taste of a person. Scientists gave the subject an ordinary tasteless cookie that looked like a slice of orange or a piece of fried meat in glasses. The visual range was confirmed by the corresponding smell. The man, having eaten the cookies, was sure that he had swallowed exactly that product, the smell of which he felt in glasses and which he saw in VR glasses.