A Phone That Smells (pleasantly we hope)

Phone makers have long had three of the five senses incorporated into their phones (hearing, sight and touch) and Sony Ericsson has now incorporated a fourth: smell (can taste be that far behind?). When we first heard about it, it reminded us of those vehix.com commercials where they are asked to come up with something that will improve the user’s experience on the site and the failing entry comes up with “new car smell - everytime you click on the mouse a new car smell comes out of your computer.”

Obviously Sony Ericsson feels this is going to be a winning combination for the Japanese market and in a nation where people pay to breath fresh air and to have their money literally washed so it’s clean when they use it, it wouldn’t surprise us if it is a big hit.

The phone unit is called the SO703i “aroma phone� from DoCoMo made by Sony Ericsson. The phone incorporates small scented sheets into the phone that give off one of 11 relaxing (and hopefully pleasant) odors that customers can hand pick for their phones. The aroma phone is due for launch in February 2007 and only available in Japan.