Television food personalities always wish that their viewers could just smell the food they’re making.
And now, a Harvard University professor and some students have created an app that could help.
According to Mashable, professor David Edwards and students developed an iPhone app that can send scents as well as photos to someone. This app, called oSnap, functions like Instagram to an extent. A user snaps photos then can tag it with up to eight scents and send it.
The recipient receives the photo and uses the corresponding oPhone, a scent-trasmitting device, to “receive” the scents.
The first oSnap message was sent from Paris to New York, where it premiered at the American Museum of Natural History.
While oSnap is widely available now, there are only two oPhones available to receive sent scents, with one at the Museum on Natural History and the other at Le Laboratoire in Paris. If someone receives a scent, they must travel to one of those two locations to download it.
But Edwards and the team trying to produce the oPhone to be commonly available through raising money in an Indiegogo campaign. And they see the the app being used most in restaurants, coffee shops or other such places where it can be difficult to explain the smells or flavors.
And users don’t have to worry about the scents they receive inundating a room.
“[The oPhone] produces just enough aroma that it’s your message, not your neighbor’s message,” Edwards said. “It’s enough for a signal but it’s not anything more than that.”