Cyrano lets you smell what’s on your iPhone
Users can punch up a few whiffs of their favorite fragrance
Practically every product I’ve ever reviewed has had to pass some kind of smell test. None more so than Cyrano, a new, cylindrical-shaped, 3-inch tall consumer electronics gadget marketed as a “digital scent speaker.”
I’ve been sniffing around it for a few days. It is available in limited quantities on preorder.
What exactly is a digital scent speaker? Think glorified, hightech equivalent of an air freshener or candle, only you can more easily switch fragrances or quickly turn smells on or off.
The company behind Cyrano, Cambridge, Mass.-based Vapor Communications, has more ambitious aspirations for the product — for use in storytelling, gaming and, most importantly, health and wellness.
The device is controlled wirelessly through an app on your iPhone that remotely “plays” sequences of scents called mood medleys.
Alas, the app crashed a couple of times and was buggy.
Scents you fire up are meant to last up to a few minutes, long enough for you to derive whatever pleasure or benefit you get from smelling them but short enough to eliminate the “olfactory fatigue” the company says you’ll get from an air freshener or candle.
Cyrano is designed to work in relatively small spaces so as not to overwhelm office mates or family members whose nasal sensibilities may not match your own.
No one in my office put up a stink, and most didn’t even seem to notice when I had Cyrano working on my desk.
Sitting next to Cyrano, I could hear it running when it activated a scent, but it is otherwise reasonably quiet.
You might place it on a bedside table or in the cup holder of your car.
The product is the brainchild of Harvard professor and Vapor founder David Edwards, who says the olfactory nerve is the only sensory nerve with direct access to the brain.
“Our moods are influenced by light as with sunshine and by sound as with music, but even more profoundly by scent as with the fragrance of an orchid or the aroma of hot chocolate,” he says.
Inside Cyrano are three small cartridges referred to as oChips, each with four scents designed by Vapor’s partner, International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF). You unscrew the top of Cyrano and drop the cartridges into their designated compartments. That means Cyrano can store a palette of up to a dozen digital scents at a time, any of which you can choose to run by tapping an icon in the app.
Despite the company name, no vapor is emitted into the air.
Cyrano comes with a starter kit collection of “Natural Moods” cartridges lumped into categories.
You have the Get Energized scents (peppermint, orange ginger, pine, wingz), the Get Relaxed scents (lavender, vanilla, lilac, honeysuckle) and the Get Away scents (guava, coconut, venetian bellini, suntan).
To my nose, most were pleasant enough, and you can adjust the intensity of a scent by dragging a slider in the app.
You can design your own mood medleys and share them through social media or an email or message (sent obviously to someone who would also have a Cyrano).
What I do find odious is the $149 price.
According to the company, the supply of scents should last about a month with regular use; additional sets of cartridges cost $19.99.
The battery inside Cyrano is rated to go about a day-and-ahalf; you charge it through a USB cable.
I’m told dozens of scents are in the works, anything from the smell of bacon to coffee. You can imagine how food companies or maybe Food Network might exploit Cyrano to let you “sample” ingredients or recipes.
Similarly, perfume makers might produce oChips in tandem with ads that will let you get a whiff of a new fragrance.
Hinting at other possibilities, a simple game is included with the app, the goal of which is to have you blindly guess scents.
A short animated video is included to demonstrate how what you’re watching might be enhanced by appropriate fragrances.
This brings to mind the Smello-Vision system from decades ago that was supposed to release odors to movie audiences, timed to particular scenes. It was only used for one commercial film in 1960. Time put it on its list of the 50 worst inventions.
Though marrying the sense of smell with high tech isn’t exactly a fresh concept, its time might be ripe. Japanese company Scentee sells an olfactory device that sprays aromas after being connected to the earphone jack of your smartphone. It costs about $80 with shipping.
In 2013, the microwave popcorn maker Pop Secret experimented with a limited edition kernel-shaped plastic dongle called The Pop Dongle, which, when plugged into the audio jack of an iPhone, emitted the smell of popcorn during game play.
I’m eager to get a whiff of some of the other scents Cyrano says are coming, and I’m also eager to see the price come down. What I sense in the meantime is that Vapor is onto something.