Could You Send a Smell Over the Internet?

You can send someone a photograph of a meal. You can stream music from another country. Could you also send the smell of coffee or an orange? Researchers have been exploring how to capture, transmit and reproduce scents, and a study published in Science Advances in October 2026 describes a new experimental system called Scentronic.

A smell is not a sound file

Sound and images can be represented as digital signals that speakers and screens turn back into something we can hear or see. Smell is different: odours come from physical chemicals reaching receptors in the nose. A digital system therefore needs a sensor that can distinguish chemical patterns and a receiver that can create a physical scent for someone to experience.

Scentronic combines an AI-assisted sensing platform with an olfactory actuator—a device that releases carefully controlled scent. The research describes an internet-connected system in which one device analyses an odour and communicates information to a receiving device. The receiver uses scent materials and controlled release to reproduce a selected smell.

What the research does—and does not—show

The paper is a research demonstration, not a consumer product announcement. The researchers describe a system tested with selected scents and wearable hardware. That is a meaningful step in exploring digital olfaction, but it is not the same as recording every smell accurately or making it available through a standard phone.

A receiver needs physical materials that can produce the intended odours. It must also manage how much scent is released and how one smell mixes with another. People experience scents differently, and odours can linger or blend. Those practical constraints make scent transmission more complicated than sending an image over a messaging app.

Where might it be useful?

Researchers point to possible uses in human-computer interaction, remote experiences and medical research. A controlled scent stimulus could help researchers study how people detect or respond to odours. In future, carefully designed systems might add another sensory layer to training or virtual experiences.

Those are possibilities to investigate, not established benefits available to customers today. Any healthcare application would need appropriate clinical evidence, and consumer devices would need to address allergies, accessibility, cleaning, replacement materials and the effect of releasing scents into shared spaces.

So, can you send someone a smell?

In a limited research setup with sensing and scent-producing equipment, scientists can transmit information used to recreate selected odours. That is not the same as sending arbitrary smells through the internet, and it is not a capability built into ordinary smartphones.

The interesting development is that digital systems are beginning to experiment with a sense that screens have largely ignored. Whether that becomes useful outside research will depend on reliable sensors, practical wearable devices, safe scent materials and evidence that people actually want the experience.

Read the original Scentronic research paper in Science Advances →

Read IT Club’s article on live translation through headphones →

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