At Hynt, we believe the most memorable experiences engage all the senses – not just sight and sound. Over the years, our scent technology has helped bring extraordinary virtual (VR) and augmented (AR) reality experiences to life, from the decks of a Tudor warship to the heart of a rainforest. Here’s a look at seven unique projects where our scent technology helped creators push the boundaries of immersive storytelling.
VR experiences using Hynt’s scent technology
TreeVR, a global touring exhibition with an important message
Tree was an award-winning, internationally touring VR experience that transformed participants into a rainforest tree – from seedling to towering canopy – using full-body haptics, wind, heat, and scent. Created by Milica Zec and Winslow Porter at New Reality Company, it exhibited at venues ranging from the Sundance Film Festival and TED 2017 to the United Nations General Assembly and the World Economic Forum in Davos, aiming to foster a powerful emotional connection to forests and inspire action on climate change. Hynt’s early-stage scent technology was integrated from 2018 onwards to release earthy, soil-rich aromas as visitors push through the ground at the start of their journey, deepening the sense of transformation and making the environmental message viscerally real.
FlyVR at Saatchi Gallery, bringing the history of human flight to life
Fly was a multisensory VR installation that took visitors on a journey through the history of human flight, created by Charlotte Mikkelborg at Picture This Productions, and exhibited at London’s Saatchi Gallery in 2019. Wearing an HTC Vive headset and leaning into a specially designed harness, visitors soared as a bird over the fields of Tuscany alongside a daydreaming Leonardo da Vinci, and later took the controls of the Wright Brothers’ historic aircraft. Hynt’s scent technology was woven into the experience to release the warm summer aromas of Tuscan fields at precisely the right moments, combining with fans, haptics, and golden visuals to create a genuine sensation of being airborne.
Forager VR, an immersive journey into the life of fungi
Forager (2023) was a groundbreaking multisensory VR experience created by producers and co-creators Winslow Porter and Elie Zananiri. In the experience, the user lies down wearing a VR headset and embarks on a journey into the full lifecycle of a mushroom, from spore to mycelium to fruiting body and back again. A key element of the experience was its use of scent, delivered in partnership with Hynt (formerly OW Smell Made Digital). Together with Scentronics, the team developed a sequence of four distinct smells – resinous pine, forest floor, earthy underground, and a slightly funky mushroom – which were dispersed throughout the runtime of the piece to elevate the immersive experience. ‘Forager’ toured extensively, exhibiting at prestigious events worldwide, including Venice Immersive in Italy, MUTEK in Montreal, Canada, the BFI London Film Festival and Camden International Film Festival in the UK, and BIFAN in Bucheon, Korea, among others.
FarFalla, a VR experience developed to support research into the circular economy
FarFalla is a multisensory VR experience designed to inspire consumers and spark engagement with circular, sustainable textile practices. The experience takes users from the environmental impacts of fashion to a hopeful near-future repair workshop, where they explore emerging materials and processes for repairing and remaking clothing, and ends with a pledge to take action in the real world. Scent and touch are integrated throughout to enhance immersion and make both materials and the story’s message more real. Developed through collaboration between six universities and two industry partners (including Hynt), FarFalla combines digital scent delivery with tactile interaction in VR to show that sustainability communication can be engaging rather than lecturing. During public exhibitions, participants described the experience as inspiring and enjoyable, with smell consistently one of the strongest contributors to engagement. FarFalla was exhibited at Ars Electronica 2024 in Austria and has been featured in Multisensory Experiences (Obrist et al., 2025) and the Textiles Circularity book (Textiles Circularity Centre). Hynt’s Christopher Dawes led the design, development, and cross-partner collaboration.
Immersive experiences using scent technology
The smell trail at Little Ant Kingdom at KidsSTOP™, Singapore Science Centre
The Little Ant Kingdom is an immersive, child-sized exhibit at KidsSTOP™, the dedicated children’s science centre at Science Centre Singapore. Designed for children aged 3 to 8, it invites young visitors to shrink down to ant-scale, crawling through underground tunnels, discovering how ant colonies work, and experiencing the natural world from an entirely new perspective. Hynt’s scent technology powers a dedicated scent trail within the exhibit, releasing nature-inspired aromas to heighten the sense of being among ants – turning a science lesson into a multisensory adventure designed to spark curiosity and wonder.
INSIDE: The Childhood of an Artist, a touring production celebrating a unique artist
Premiering at Bristol’s Old Vic in 2025, this multisensory immersive production chronicles the childhood of US sculptor and textile artist Judith Scott. Producer and Director Sacha Wares of Trial and Error Studio created ‘INSIDE: The Childhood of an Artist’, a 20-minute biographical VR piece that enables visitors to experience the life and work of this unique artist through sight, sound, touch and smell. Hynt provided the scent technology, which, as one visitor put it, ‘[…] was so brilliantly integrated. Loved it!’ The production continues to tour in 2026 and recently ran at CPH:DOX Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark.
AR experiences using scent technology
Time Detectives: The Mystery of the Mary Rose, an immersive, multisensory game
Hailed as the world’s first multisensory AR trail-based game upon its launch in 2022, Time Detectives casts visitors at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth as investigators for King Henry VIII, tasked with uncovering why his flagship warship sank in 1545. Working with Picture This Productions director Charlotte Mikkelborg, the museum created a unique app that visitors can download to any device. Using their smartphone as a “magical spyglass,” players can then interact with photorealistic 3D reconstructions of the ship’s actual crew while exploring the museum’s galleries. But the game also features an additional element of realism: smell. Having previously experienced Hynt’s scent technology when creating the Saatchi Gallery’s FlyVR exhibit, Mikkelborg turned to our team once again. This time, our scent tech was adapted to be worn in a small backpack that automatically releases contextually relevant aromas at key story moments – sea spray as players board the vessel, gunpowder as they fire the cannon – bringing the five-hundred-year-old world of the Mary Rose back to life.
VR and AR technology is not only innovating the entertainment and educational spaces. To learn more about the use of these technologies in rehabilitation healthcare – and the role of scent technology in it – read our previously published article, ‘Revolutionising rehabilitation healthcare with VR and smell‘.
Interested in incorporating scent into your VR, AR/AX, or immersive production? Get in touch to find out more about how our technology can bring your experience to life.