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This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022

 

BeoScent: the next frontier of home automation

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beojeff
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beojeff Posted: Sat, May 16 2015 10:38 PM

I recall from my youth reading Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” for the first time and being fascinated by a description of the home of the future having scent plumbed throughout the home just as any other utility. I remember one of the characters being upset while he was on holiday because he forgot to turn the scent off and was thinking about the cost of that utility bill.

My latest MLGW project has been to enable control over home fragrance via the MLGW. I used a Lutron RadioRa 2 Plug-In Appliance Module. This serves as a way to remotely switch on and off the power to whatever is plugged into the module. I used a simple essential oil warmer that has a switch on the power cord. I switched the power on the oil warmer to “on” and let the Plug-In Appliance Module control the on/off. This works very effectively and adds fragrance very quickly when activated. I added a button labeled “Scent” with a submenu for “On” and “Off” and added it to the Beo6 as well as adding buttons to the BeoLink app. This can even be control by the Apple Watch using Philippe’s LinkRemote app. One could conceivably have multiple essential oil warmers loaded with different scents and use labels such as “lavender,” “vanilla,” etc. I could add this to the macro for my “Welcome” button on the Lutron wall keypad or Essence Wall Remote to activate the scent when coming into the home and add it to the “Goodbye” or “Away” button to turn the scent off when leaving the home. With the Lutron mobile app, I could know if I left it on while I’m away from home and turn it off remotely. Such a feature as this was not conceived of in “Brave New World!” Another use of this BeoScent could be to have an oil warmer in the guest bathroom that is triggered by an occupancy sensor.

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It would be great to be able to use one of the modern oil diffusers that disperse scent into the air in a way similar to a humidifier. However, all such diffusers that I have found have electronics that require the activation button to be pressed whenever power is restored from the mains. If anyone comes across such a diffuser that can simply be activated by restoring power from the mains, please let me know.

Jeff
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Jeff replied on Sat, May 16 2015 11:27 PM

Interesting, Brave New World indeed! I find the things that can be done by people willing to work at it with the MLGW and such fascinating. Home automation is interesting, though personally I'm not a lover of scents, I can see some valuing the ability to hit the house on a Friday after a long work week, with the house already having the correct lights, music, and scent to speed relaxation. Now if it only could pour your wine for you!

I saw an urban combat training range that had very large scent generators to add realism, things like bread baking or roasting meat for the market area. And things like open sewer and decaying bodies, kind of an aggressive form of aroma therapy. It did add an element of realism that's hard to get otherwise.

Jeff

I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus. Sad

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