As reported by the smart packaging experts at IDTechEx, a smart air freshener prototype called Airoma was shown last month at the Packaging Innovation Show in Birmingham, England. Airoma uses electronic charges to make custom scents and it was developed by Design Reality in the United Kingdom.
A memory card stores fragrance recipes and power to drive the electrics comes from a bioresin battery. This activates selected scent capsules and creates a programmed combination of scents to give a programmed fragrance, using a pulsating charge. It was hoped that the working prototype would generate interest leading to funding of a rollout. The concept evolved from existing products on the market today that can recognise and replicate preprogrammed scents and ultimately it should lead to electronic scent detection and emission, using disposable printed electronic and electric circuits and power sources.
The overall unit itself is of course a product that is required to utilise the fragrance capsules, not dissimilar to a plug-in air freshener/refillable device. It is envisioned that the only part brought regularly are the capsules and power source.
Design Reality product designer Kelly Dawson informs Packaging Insights that the concept is "purely conceptual, we are unaware of the chemical makeup of such a requirement. The idea is to propose a design concept to fragrance developers in the packaging world whereby they may know if this could become a reality!"
For more information on this kind of leading-edge technology, read the monthly Smart Packaging Journal, the reports Electronic Smart Packaging, Consumer Smart Packaging, and Organic Electronics Market Forecasts, Players, Opportunities 2005-2025, all at IDTechEx. Also, consider attending the Printed Electronics USA conference in Naples, FL, December 7-8, 2005.
