Have you ever wanted to stop and smell the flowers inSkyrim?Maybe feel the wind rushing past your face inBeat Saber?It turns out this might be a possibility in the future asFeelreallooks to be adding additional enhancements to VR headsets.
TheFeelrealattachment is compatible using Bluetooth with the PSVR, HTC Vive, Oculus Go, Oculus Rift, and the Samsung Gear VR. What is does is projects scents to your nose so that you’re able to smell your games or movies. It’s also connected to your VR device by using magnets and weighs 7oz with a battery life of 4 hours.
The device works by usingFeelreal’s"reliable scent generator" which houses a replaceable cartridge containing nine capsules filled with aromas. You’ll be able to choose and combine from 255 scents from theFeelrealstore and install or change them depending on what VR experience you’re planning to enjoy.
All of the aromas are created by Bogdan Zubchenko, an acclaimed perfumer, and olfactologist, and the device comes in three colors, white, grey, and black.
As well as aromas, the device can also spray your face with a water mist, blow wind at your cheeks, gust warm air onto your face, and use haptic motors to bring vibrations to the headset.
Currently, there are a small handful of video games supported byFeelreal, those being the following,
YouTube VRis also supported andFeelreal Dreamsis essentially a fun experiment grounds created by the company. Once the device launches, you should be able to install free mods that will be available from theFeelreallibrary For developers, there’s an SDK to allow them to add support for the device using Unity or the Unreal Engine.
Of course, if games and movies aren’t your things then you can just use it without a VR headset and instead use your mobile to create your own aromatherapy system.
Additionally, a video editor will allow users to create their own tracks for videos to share with others. You’ll be able to add the type of scent to produce at a certain point, add wind, heat, water mist, punch vibrations, and more. Apparently, the scent cartridges can be modified to create unique experiences.
On Twitter, we saw the headset from behind through the below tweet showing the vents and how nicely it appears to fit onto a VR headset.
Three weeks ago a trailer landed on the official YouTube showing a clip of a player using it inSkyrim VR.You can watch that below. As for what’s inside the device you can see thevideoFeelreallaunched two weeks ago here.
Feelrealis apparently to due be launching a Kickstarter soon with Early Bird discounts being offered for when pre-orders get going. I’m intriged by this, but I’m also wondering how people would use it to create horribly potent smells, perhaps around zombies? Maybe a fart? Either way, the future is weird.
Actually, you know what? The official account on Reddit replied to someone asking “Have you perfected the smell of death and blood, rot, mildew and gunpowder?”. The response was
“Yeah we thought of those. Considering player comfort and nausea issues (already an issue for a lot of people in VR), theese smells were designed to be kinda unpleasant but not real enough to make you throw up.”
Gross, but also very cool. What do you think of being able to smell your games?
