Third Wave or Winter? The Past and Future of Smell in HCI

Abstract

Over the last hundred years, the integration of scent in technology could roughly be seen as having two public waves, analogous to virtual reality's three or four. These waves include the cinematic technologies of the 1960s and the rise of olfactory desktop peripherals and home fragrance technologies for the internet in the 1990s and early 2000s. In the last few decades, an impressive, multi-disciplinary effort in Human-Computer Interaction has been made to incorporate smell into interactive systems. This panel asks whether exciting recent developments in smell for Human-Computer Interaction mark the cusp of a third wave and whether the field is here to stay or should prepare for another winter.