Chinese engineers have developed a “digital lollipop”

The device allows you to taste objects and food from virtual reality.

A group of scientists from Hong Kong has developed a device in the form of a lollipop that can recreate several different tastes in a virtual environment. Sweet, salty and sour tastes are available, as well as cherry, passion fruit, green tea, milk, durian and grapefruit.

As ArsTechnica points out, developers of VR devices and applications have made several attempts to recreate tastes in virtual reality. For this, such mechanisms as chemical, thermal and electrical stimulation were used, as well as iontophoresis - the introduction of charged ions of a substance through the skin using an electric current. Hong Kong scientists used the iontophoresis method: it is noted that it is safe, provides accurate taste feedback and allows for the most natural human-machine interface.

As an interface, the developers created a lollipop imitator. The device contains nine channels with flavored hydrogel based on agarose and mineral water. These solutions imitate sugar, salt, citric acid, cherry, passion fruit, green tea, milk, durian and grapefruit. Seven more channels add smell to enhance the perception of taste. The GUI interface in the virtual environment allows you to customize the supply of ions of a certain taste or their combination. The "charged" hydrogel is supplied to the outside of the "lollipop", which must be licked to feel the taste.

The "lollipop" is equipped with a lithium-ion battery, a microcontroller, a Bluetooth module, resistors, capacitors, N-type and P-type MOSFETs and linear regulators for wireless control of taste channels. The final device is enclosed in a case of 8 x 3 x 1 cm and weighs about 15 g.

The developers expect that the virtual "lollipop" can help introduce children to various foods. In addition, it can be used in studies of taste disorders and in e-commerce: the gadget will allow you to taste the products that the user orders online.

The authors plan to improve their development, focusing primarily on expanding the time range of use of the "lollipop" (currently it is limited to about an hour, since hydrogels saturated with additives dry out and lose their taste).