UnicoMarketing: TV set that emits smells? This startup has what it takes to make it happen

Smell is the sense most strongly connected to memory, but it was the words of a university professor that transported South Korean entrepreneur Dong Wook Kim back to his childhood living room. During a lecture at Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Kim’s professor talked about how despite decades of technological advances, no one had figured out a viable way to integrate smell with TV broadcast.

Kim, who was still searching for a theme to base his research around, immediately remembered a conversation with his mother from 1980 – the same year that South Korea began receiving color television broadcasts.

“My family bought a color TV around the same time they became available – keep in mind, this was two decades after color broadcast started in Japan,” Kim says. “This cutting-edge technology had a big impact on me. I distinctly remember my mother telling me, ‘Now we can see everything in color, but someday we’ll get the smell also.’ The idea had never left my brain, and I suddenly realized my area of research.”

Kim’s startup, Aromajoin, just might be the future of movie theaters, interactive advertisements – and maybe even home entertainment.

Many attempts at integrating smell with video exist, especially at theme parks with so-called 4D movie theaters. But there’s a problem with many existing “smell-o-vision 2.0” apparatuses – they’re expensive and they often use liquid-based aroma sprays. The problem with liquid, Kim explains, is that scent particles diffuse too quickly. Sprays also have to be refilled often, decreasing cost-effectiveness.

Aromajoin’s “Aroma Shooters” use solid scent cartridges. Kim explains the advantage of a solid over a liquid:

Imagine if I pour some water onto the table. By itself, it evaporates quickly, but if I use a sponge to capture the water, it remains there much longer. By designing a solid aroma cartridge – essentially, putting that sponge into a contained environment – we can shut out the temperature and airflow to even further slow down evaporation. Then, by using a fan, we can push the scent out in small increments. Smell only comes when the fan is on, and it stops as soon as the fan stops.

The inner working of an Aroma Shooter. The black triangles, about the size of a 100 yen coin, are solid aroma cartridges.

Aromajoin’s current cartridge prototypes can provide three seconds of aroma more than 45,000 times each. That means a single cartridge can be used 250 times a day for up to six months (Kim says that different scents have different sized molecules, so some scents will last longer than others).

In addition to lasting longer, Aroma Shooters can instantly mix up to six different scents. Again, by using a solid cartridge, scents can be changed in just 0.1 seconds – faster than the human nose can scientifically detect a change. The current effective range of the current Aroma Shooter is 60 to 80 cm – and smells don’t linger after they’re triggered, either.

Kim says the startup can provide approximately 500 scents to potential customers – around 300 perfumes in addition to 200 essential oils.

Aromajoin’s Aroma Player software is simple and straightforward – it almost resembles music mixing software a la Garageband. Just upload a video and drag-and-drop scents (or mixtures of scents) at specific times. The example that was shown to me was a perfume advertisement, with the narrator traveling through the jungle to find specific fruits and herbs to make the perfect scent. As each was encountered, the Aroma Shooters went to work. The smells were never overpowering, like walking through a high-end department store’s fragrance area can often be, and I was impressed with home seamlessly the scents transitioned from one to another without mixing (unless the mix was intentional. The final scent was of the perfume itself – an intriguing way to show off a designer aroma.

Additionally, a demonstration terminal using an iPad (pictured at the top of this post) allows users to simply touch an image and have its corresponding scent released instantly.

The Aroma Player software connected to four Aroma Shooters (containing a combined 24 scents).

Secret formula

After receiving his PhD from JAIST, Kim entered Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), where he was able to switch his focus from the science of aroma to designing hardware that could deploy it. He worked as a researcher by day, spending nights prototyping and testing what would become the Aroma Shooter.

Last April, Kim resigned from NICT and launched the first commercial version of his product, dubbed the AS1. His 10-member team is already hard at work on version 2 (the AS1S), as well as a compact iteration called the Aroma Shooter Mini (ASM) – which Kim hopes to put on Kickstarter by early next year. He’s also considering an aroma-based alarm clock, as waking up to a specific scent “has a softer touch on the brain than sound.”

Kim obsesses over protecting his creation, one that he genuinely believes will change the world. He’s filed for 14 patents in 27 countries. Parts are shipped from separate factories and Kim finishes the assembly by hand.

“The circuit board is manufactured by one company, the hardware set comes from another, then I put the pieces together in my lab,” he says. “And like the Coca Cola formula, I’m the only person who knows how to make our aroma cartridges.”

Kim, pictured with a solid aroma cartridge.

Scent meets media

Kim’s target market is wide: digital signage and advertising, 4D theaters, research and development, convenience stores, and of course future television sets. Aromajoin first publicly showed off its prototype at Tohmatsu’s National Startup Day Kansai in July, where it won the hardware grand prix. Kim says that the startup has sold 30 units since then – including one being used at the Kao Museum in Tokyo.

The AS1 sells for JPY 300,000 (US$2,550), which includes six cartridges and free Windows software. Replacement cartridges cost JPY 7,000 (US$59.50) each and optional iOS software costs an additional JPY 72,000 (US$611).

Aromajoin has been 100 percent bootstrapped since day one. Kim says that the company is making money, so attracting investment isn’t a top priority just yet.

“We need software developers, field engineers, and customer support staff,” he says. “We need good team members more than venture capital at this point.”

As for Kim’s ultimate goal?

Media is only images and sound, maybe slightly tactile like vibration on a smartphone. We want to change media. We want to watch TV with an accompanying smell. We want computers and smartphones to provide aroma feedback.

“I want to be riding the train in Tokyo someday and have the Aroma Shooter emitting a good smell to commuters,” he adds with a grin.