This strange Raspberry Pi project is an AI-powered “Aroma Telephone” that picks your perfume

Ever struggled to pick the perfect perfume for a special occasion? A group of tech enthusiasts in Japan has created a clever solution using a Raspberry Pi. It’s a device that can actually choose a scent for you, believe it or not. Imagine an old-fashioned telephone. But instead of making calls, it’s a scent dispenser. Inside, there’s a Raspberry Pi hooked up to six different perfume bottles. When you’re unsure what scent to wear, you pick up the phone and tell it what you’re doing.

Spotted as a blog post, the phone uses AI to understand your words. It then decides which perfume would be best for the situation. Maybe it picks a sweet, floral scent for a date, or something fresh and clean for the office. Once it’s made its choice, the phone sprays the chosen perfume into the air.

The Aroma Telephone is strange, but a nice piece of design

This might sound like a strange invention, but it shows how powerful the Raspberry Pi can be. It can understand spoken words, make smart decisions, and control other devices.

For a quick rundown on the process, the direct translation from the blog post goes as follows:

1. Pick up the phone and talk about your fragrance concerns.
2. ChatGPT will act as a scent advisor and answer your concerns.
3. A customized scent is sprayed based on the answer.

And this isn’t the only amazing thing people have done with Raspberry Pis. Some have created their own personal assistants, while others have built devices that let plants “talk” to their owners. It’s clear that the possibilities are endless here. Recently we covered a Raspberry Pi-powered robot and a Pi-based GameBoy on an iPad.

Our take

This Raspberry Pi-based scent dispenser is a great look at human-computer interaction, AI, and IoT. By leveraging voice recognition, natural language processing, and machine learning, the device demonstrates the potential for technology to influence sensory experiences.

While the concept might appear very niche, if not unserious, it does showcase the adaptability of the Raspberry Pi platform for developing innovative applications. Furthermore, it serves as a proof-of-concept for more complex AI-driven systems that could potentially assist users in various decision-making processes.