Posted: Feb 16, 2023 3:33 PM CST
by staff at the Alabama News Network
By JAMIE TUCKER Consumer Technology Reporter
People often joke about watching TV with “Smell-O-Vision”. Just like you can smell air freshener ads or smell what a chef is baking on a cooking show.
A few virtual reality companies make this possible. Really.
Imagine going to the cinema and experiencing it with almost all your senses. That’s the idea behind Positron’s Voyager Motion chairs.
“360 degree rotation as well as pitch, back and forth. It also has haptic feedback, spatial track 3D audio, and now we’ve just started integrating smells,” said Jeffrey Travis, CEO of Positron.
The Voyager Motion chairs look like capsules that contain a white box that emits the scent of what you’re looking at. Play now in virtual reality cinemas in 5 cities.
Part of a growing body of technology to make virtual reality cool enough for non-gamers too. There are virtual reality shoes.
Devices where the person lays down on a table with the full movement, so that it feels like flying. Seats that put you behind the wheel of a racing car.
Virtual reality rides to feel like you’re on roller coasters and rocket ships.
Virtual reality bodysuits that provide live haptic feedback. The Tesla suits look like they are from Ready Player One and are not only used for playing, but also for working. A man demonstrating the Tesla suit was working on repairs aboard a space station.
For gamers playing at home, the BHaptic vest has sensors around the chest and shoulders and comes with wrist straps. The vests vibrate and pulse to make it feel like you’re being hit or shot with a gun.
To smell things in virtual reality on VR headsets at home, there is OVR. It’s a device that lets you smell what you see. I tried it out at CES this year and visited a campground where I not only smelled the fire but also the marshmallow I was toasting.
“As the distance to objects changes, the intensity changes more,” said Aaron Wisniewski, CEO of OVR Technologies. “When you bring it up to your nose, that’s where the smell starts to trigger and gets more and more intense as you bring it closer to your nose.”
It felt or smelled incredibly real. What has prevented VR from garnering widespread interest is that the sight and sound aren’t enough to fully immerse you in the experience. While taste can be tricky, tech companies are successfully triggering the other 6 senses.
“By bringing in scent and adding that immersion, that depth, that emotion, you become the protagonist instead of being a spectator in the digital world,” Wisniewski said.
Why is this important to attract non-gamers to the VR platforms? Imagine using all these technologies for self-care. Do you need to meditate or relax on the beach for a few minutes every day? It is now possible not only to see and hear the sea, but also to smell it.
The technology is here and it could soon be in a living room near you.
