To help solve the problem we added a new sense to the smartphone: olfaction.

Introducing: NOSE. A global innovation allowing smartphones to smell human male sweat and inform them if it’s OK, if it’s TIME or if it’s urgent.

A breakthrough for the internet of things in men’s daily care routines.

NOSE combines a hardware sensor technology - hidden in the smartphone cover - with a mobile application. Both are connected via Bluetooth and make sure that male body odor is analyzed in few seconds and your ‘smell status’ is shared.

When the ‘smell status’ is shared and men happen to be a danger for their surroundings, NOSE connects them directly to the online store of NIVEA MEN. Deodorants in case of ‘it’s time’, shower gels in case of ‘it’s urgent’.

How it works: Activate the application, put your smartphone near your armpit, NOSE start smelling. The uniquely designed smartphone cover contains the hardware – sensor - that gives your smartphone the sense of smell, captures it and sends it back to the phone via Bluetooth to the NOSE application. A learning algorithm benchmarks and evaluates the captured information. The algorithm's accuracy depends on the gathered 'smell'-data. That's why smell data of over 4000 males, different races, different countries, different continents, different humidity context, ... have been gathered, to improve and stabilize the 'smell status'-algorithm.

The sensor technology detects and breaks down the chemical components in the air. When those compounds are broken apart, they generate electrons. Those freed electrons create low levels of current that we turn into a voltage signal indicating the concentration of a bad or good smell coming to the sensor.

The smell sensor then transforms the chemical information into digital data and transmits them to the app. The app retrieves the data and uses a learning algorithm to determine the result and indicating your status. (OK – TIME – URGENT)

NOSE has been in proto-type development since 2015. Since early March 2016 NOSE is beyond a Beta-phase. Meaning that the first NOSE smartphone covers are in production and the NOSE app is to be found in the appstore.

In April 2016 the first hundred NOSES were dispatched to influencers and press. For now on iPhone6 only. More smell data was gathered. The learning Algorythm improved. By end of 2016 NOSE will be available for an even broader group. In 2017 NOSE will be available on all smartphones for broad audience, helping men globally to be aware and care for their body odor.

Data will continue to be gathered and the algorithm will continue to be more accurate with every 100 shared 'smell status'-data.

To help solve the problem that men can't smell their own sweat we added a new sense to the smartphone: olfaction.

The technology to develop that new sense was completely dependent on a learning algorithm, which was completely dependent on data gathering.

Over 4000 field tests (smell data of over 4000 males, different races, different countries, different continents, different humidity context, ... ) have been held to improve and stabilize the 'smell status'-algorithm, hence the performance. The ever learning algorithm – the more data, the more accurate the algorithm – is now at 80% accuracy.

With 40% less brain area perceiving odor versus females, the male olfaction is much less sensitive on average. This combined with the fact that our nose is very used to our own body odor makes that men have a little problem: they can not smell their own sweat.

As a global leader in functional care NIVEA MEN wanted innovative solutions to help solving that problem and by doing so helping men to be aware and care about their body odor.

Objective: help men change their behavior, be more aware and care about their own odor.