inScent: a Wearable Olfactory Display as an Amplification for Mobile Notifications

We introduce inScent, a wearable olfactory display that can be worn in mobile everyday situations and allows the user to receive personal scented notifications, i.e. scentifications. Olfaction, i.e. the sense of smell, is used by humans as a sensorial information channel as an element for experiencing the environment. Olfactory sensations are closely linked to emotions and memories, but also notify about personal dangers such as fire or foulness. We want to utilize the properties of smell as a notification channel by amplifying received mobile notifications with artificially emitted scents. We built a wearable olfactory display that can be worn as a pendant around the neck and contains up to eight different scent aromas that can be inserted and quickly exchanged via small scent cartridges. Upon emission, scent aroma is vaporized and blown towards the user. A hardware - and software framework is presented that allows developers to add scents to their mobile applications. In a qualitative user study, participants wore the inScent wearable in public. We used subsequent semi-structured interviews and grounded theory to build a common understanding of the experience and derived lessons learned for the use of scentifications in mobile situations.