 And here at the ID TechEx show, this is a revolutionary sensor right here, right? So hi, so who are you? Hi, I'm Shun Kuroki, the CEO of a company called Aroma Bit. And what is this? This is our compact smell sensor module. So what are we looking at here? It looks like there's five things. Yes, so each of them is a sensor substrate. This is called QCM, or stands for Quartz-Crystal Microballus. So it's basically a very high-precision, sensitive sensor element that can detect the mass of the molecules. And on top of it is our membrane that functions as a receptor of your nose. And in this case, there are five different materials where each of them have different chemical affinity or basically stickiness on the chemical sense. So it says SDK 1Q, are you selling a development kit right now? Yes. It looks like with this, it looks similar to this? We actually give only this red part. Only the red part? Yes, right. And what do you connect to? You can connect to any PCBs right over the system. What's a connector? A connector is a SPI standard, which you can usually, is a very standard that you can use to connect to a system like Raspberry Pi. So let's put it back right here. So here I see something that's called Aroma Coder, 35Q model series. What is Aroma Coder? Is it desktop? Yes. So Aroma Coder is desktop type high resolution, or high resolution instruments where you can, under one scan, take 35 different data sets in a data set. So this is a place you put something inside of it? Yes. Where is it put? This is where you put it. You open it? You put the sample in? You close it and then you open, switch on. Switch on? Then you get 35 different sensor output data. So this one has five and this one has 35? Yes. So it's more resolution? Higher resolution. But five, you can do a lot with five? Already, yes, with five. For instance, you can monitor spoilage of food. That's amazing. That's a big market, right? I think so. So you can go around in the supermarket and say, I want this banana and this banana? For instance, yes. Maybe. If you have your own. Yes. Can you put this in the phone? Yes, eventually, as you can see, it's pretty small compared to my finger. And we think they can make it much smaller in near future. Where are you based? We're based in Tokyo, Japan. And what are we seeing here? Is it connected now? Yes. So what can we see? So this actual sensor output expressed as in the change in frequency of the five elements you saw. And when you breathe on it, you blow on it, you get to see the response, okay? Can I do that? So that was you? Yes, actually. So I breathe on it? Go ahead. That's what you want to take. So that means I have to brush my teeth? What does it mean? So that... In theory, it could? In theory, yes. That's actually looking at the pattern of your breath, basically. And this is really providing a reading of smell. This is the science of smell? Yes. And it's scientifically proven this is how smell works? Well, mechanically, yes. In theory, because our sensors actually check monitoring is a very high-precision mass detector. So when the molecule hits the surface of the sensor, it changes the frequency based on the mass change. So does that mean what we have in the nose is just a sensor of a frequency of something? Okay, so your nose has a different mechanism, but our sensor mimics exactly what your nose is doing. So the nose has 35 different sensors or something like that? In case of humans, they believe to be 400 different receptors. Some studies say more than 1,000. That's relative to our currently available 35 sensors. So these receptors are physically inside the nose somewhere, somehow. Yes. And they are tuned, they're optimized or they're... What's it called? They have learned something in our past that make us recognize a smell. Actually, you actually learn as you grow up an input smell, just like building a database. Along with other sensory systems, input output from the other sensory systems such as your eyes and your brain. And we calibrate that sense, right, in our nose or something like that? Yes. And you do something similar? In our cases, we can do that through by utilizing available technology such as AI in a machine learning to make it more advanced and smaller. So there's five different colors, blue, green, yellow, orange and pink. Yes. And what are they? Are they like the five you think are the most important five? No, this five is actually randomly chosen. Five different films where each of the film have different chemical affinity or stickiness. So in this case, we did choose five. Probably more common. Reaction to expected for various applications. So are you a very famous company or a new company? Well, we've been founded in 2014, so it's year five for us. So we're a startup, but very recently we've been founded from a large corporate company such as Sony. And for every time we come to this kind of startup event, we get a lot of awards. So we're getting there, I think. 2014, now it's 2019. So five years, is it shipping? Or is it still development kits so far? No, so this is actually ready. This SDK, the sensor module that you can actually, it's on mass production. Ready. And how do I, if I want to make a phone, because every phone is the same in the market. And everybody is doing the same. And now they have notch and they have, I don't know. But what if somebody wants to make a phone with this? How long time it takes before they can ship? That's a harder question because you know the price point is very low, expected to be low. And spec expected on this phone, maybe embedding components on the phone, maybe pretty hard. However, if it's an accessory on the phone, it's maybe much closer, like a year or two away, depending on the product concept. Because accessory will be, how much? $99, $199? Yeah, maybe something, maybe a few hundred dollars range. Are you saying that maybe it's too expensive to put inside the phone? Yes, and the spec is usually high, expected. As you know, any component company will tell you that having components in a smartphone is very, very challenging. From cost to spec. Some of these companies make millions of phones, so if they decide to do it. Then they will come. Then they can do it. Exactly. Because they will make five million phones, is enough quantity for you, right? Correct. So they just need one smartphone company to say we do this. Yes. And if you can help me do that, that would be wonderful. They're watching the video, I think. Yes. So and it doesn't matter, it doesn't have to be a Japanese smartphone company. You work with everybody, right? Of course not, yes. We're a very open global company. And are you the only ones who do smell-sensing technology like this? No, but they're expected to be few or to several companies trying to do the same. But our customers are telling us that we are one of the few that can actually deliver the product. And we are two to three years ahead in terms of technology. Do you have your phone? Yes. Just where do you put it? When will you put this on this corner? Probably here. So it could be like on the bottom corner? Yeah, for instance. And I think it will make sense to have somewhere close to the here because you breathe on it, for instance. So then it could give you an alarm? Or, yes. It can tell you your health care. Because people don't brush their teeth enough. Right. Or, yeah, whether your breath is bad or you maybe need to take a tic-tac. Have some disease, yeah, or recommend a tic-tac. And in theory you could point the phone in different parts of your body, right? Correct. And just one second is enough? Probably maybe a few seconds. A few seconds? Yes, when the technology is mature enough. And the sensor has to be, the sensor is a very sensitive part, right? It has to be on the edge and it will not be inside behind the grill. Right. But it cannot be waterproof. Correct. So waterproof can be done? It can. Yes. Using, you know, technology that's available, I would think. Like nano-coding, what's it called? Even Gore-Tex type of, you know. So that's not an issue? Yes. Well, it could be an issue, we don't know. It could be an issue. Yes. Because it might interfere. It needs to be an opening. When you go swimming it's difficult to smell, right? Exactly. Maybe it blocks the nose. Yes. Same thing. If you go out of the swimming pool, maybe it takes 10 minutes before you can start smelling normally again, right? Right. A small phone is smart enough to know which environment or ambient it's in. So when it's available for smelling, then maybe the shutter mechanism could just open. Nice. And how far away does it sense? That needs to be, the sample needs to reach the sensor, physically. So it needs to be pretty close. And you need to breathe in that direction. Correct. And that means you have to touch, if you want to test under your arms, for example, you have to touch it? No, you don't have to touch, but you just need to have it close enough, maybe a few centimeters. All right. I mean, it's very exciting potential, right? I hope so. And how many different ideas people have with this? How many different ideas you have? I mean applications. Yeah. We were thinking in order of a few tens. Tens of different applications. What do you mean? Applications, yeah? Applications, yes. Use cases. You have some ideas, right? You have some potential ideas for what it could be done. So you go to the supermarket or you check your food in the fridge. You can have a sensor like this inside the fridge, but then you have to put every ingredient next to it or can it smell the whole fridge? It will smell the whole fridge in that such case. Because it's a closed environment? Yes. And then some AI, something can know what is what? AI or... It can know how many bananas is in the fridge. And then which one is bad? Oh, it's too much. Or maybe in the future, when if you have enough data, visual data along with the smell profile, right, and having maybe multiple sensors inside there, you will give the direction, for instance, intelligence as well, potentially. Is it possible that this can also give diagnostics for health? Yes, healthcare. Because smell is a way to know if somebody is sick? Yes. Is it? Yes. So you just breathe on it and it's going to tell you you need to rest or something? Yes. Or you're too stressed? Yes. If you have a very close and a log your breath as often as possible to extract the new intelligence on your health based on the smell pattern of your breath. Nice. So is there another some way to have it close to here? You know, sometimes people have Bluetooth headsets. Yeah, probably similar. You can have it all the time there. Was that too much? It's very needed, yes. Very needed. That's the question of the user interface I would give you. All right, cool. All right, thanks a lot.