Is “Olly” Bringing Us One Step Closer to Smell-O-Vision?

If you’re a fan of food television, you hear it all the time by those corny chefs, “Ohhhh you need to call your cable companies and ask for SMELL-O-VISION.” Yes Emeril, you got it. Meet Olly, a web connected smelly robot. It’s not smell-o-vision by any means, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Olly converts notifications into smells — imagine the smell of sizzling bacon everytime you get a Facebook notification, or a fart every time you get mentioned in a Tweet. That’s what Olly does, it takes services on the Internet and delivers their pings as smell.

The unit has a removable section int he back which you can fill with any smell you like. Essential oils, a slice of fruit, your partner’s perfume, barf, whatever you can imagine. Olly’s casing is also customizable and stackable, allowing you to put multiple units together all connected with a different service, with a different smell.

Finally, the hopeful appeal of the Olly project is the open-ended customization of both the hardware and software. Olly’s developers boast that all their parts, code and instructions are fully accessible and opened to be tinkered with — Olly is what you make him.

Learn how to order one, or build one yourself at the OllyFactory website.