eScent creates personalised fragrance bubbles based on your mood

Context aware, sensor driven wearable tech for smart jewellery and clothing
6299-original
Wareable is reader-powered. If you click through using links on the site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

'Sensing and dispensing' wearable tech is coming to smart jewellery and connected fashion. eScent is a system designed to monitor your mood, wellbeing or activity levels and create personalised scent bubbles when you need them. It can be embedded into clothes and accessories and works with sensors tracking stress, anxiety, heart rate and yes, body odour.

Read this: The internet of us - how wearables can work with our emotions

If eScent sounds like something straight out of science fiction, that's because it is. Its creator Jenny Tillotson, a reader in Sensory Fashion at Central Saint Martins, says the wearable tech was inspired by Philip K. Dick's 1969 novel Ubik in which a spray is used to alter reality.

"It creates a micro scale, personalised scent bubble. We call it the Ubik effect," Tillotson explained at a Digital Shoreditch 2015 talk. "You can create this very close bubble that's near the face or a larger bubble depending on how much scent is released. It can be programmable, customised, in tune with music."

Cues come from biometric sensors and sounds - depending on what quantified self sensors you are wearing, triggers include your heart beat, loud angry voices, snoring, blood pressure, sweat, flatulence, galvanic skin response and body odour. It could even be used as an automatic insect repellent as the system can identify mosquito sound frequencies.

eScent creates personalised fragrance bubbles based on your mood

"It's a kind of biofeedback loop," said Tillotson. "You'd have the eScent tracking your mood and your sleep, identifying your behaviour, the way you're feeling, filter this information then release a counteractive scent depending on your mood, depending on your anxiety.

Essential reading: The best stress beating tech

"You can also use sound sensors, for example if you're feeling angry it could release a scent to calm you down. eScent would work out which aroma from the scent palette to use for you. Everyone reacts to different fragrances in different ways."

Tillotson's research has looked into how fragrance can improve sleep, curb appetite, enhance concentration and reduce anxiety and mood swings. Mental wellbeing is her focus but eScent could be used in all sorts of inventive ways - in retail, aromatherapy, sports, AR and VR and in 'adult industries'.

The patent for this futuristic tech goes all the way back to November 2005 and with over a decade in the field of sensory fashion and applications, if anyone can make eScent a reality it's Tillotson.

"The launch is not confirmed yet as we are raising investment for this final stage," she told Wareable. "We have working prototypes that are being further developed in Cambridge where the company is based. The prototypes are being miniaturised so that they are truly wearable, ultimately invisible in some cases."

More reading...

London could be the wearable tech hub of the world

Is Britain too cool for wearable tech?

The best fashion tech from big name labels

#Trending: Tech handbags at dawn

Smart fabrics set to revolutionise body tracking


How we test



By

Sophie was Wareable's associate editor. She joined the team from Stuff magazine where she was an in-house reviewer. For three and a half years, she tested every smartphone, tablet, and robot vacuum that mattered. 

A fan of thoughtful design, innovative apps, and that Spike Jonze film, she is currently wondering how many fitness tracker reviews it will take to get her fit. Current bet: 19.

Sophie has also written for a host of sites, including Metro, the Evening Standard, the Times, the Telegraph, Little White Lies, the Press Association and the Debrief.

She now works for Wired.


Related stories