According to virtual reality startups, immersive technologies that can better lives, whether helping people treat dementia or learn to pilot fighter jets, are the future of the metaverse.

Some entrepreneurs at the annual CES gadget fest in Las Vegas were eager to combine real and virtual worlds to support people stop and smell the roses.

The company OVR Technology has created an accessory for VR headsets that treats users around a faux campfire to whiffs of smoke and toasting marshmallows.

OVR Vice President Sarah Socia says, “Smell is essential to the metaverse, because it's the only sense that is directly connected to the limbic system, a part of the brain crucial for memory and emotion.”

The Vermont-based startup also has a prototype of another device that can hold scent cartridges created by users through a mobile app.

Japanese digital scent technology company Aromajoin is also betting that the metaverse will be a place of many smells.

Slowly taking shape - When Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta in late 2021, it signaled faith in the metaverse becoming the center of online life, and the company continues to invest in that future despite profits suffering.

“Metaverse these days is very likely to be met with skepticism,” said Steve Koenig, a vice president at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which organizes CES.

"VR has a multiplied impact on the part of the brain where you store things for life,” says AjnaLens co-founder Pankaj Raut.

“Right now, the metaverse is kind of a solution in search for problems. What we have done is the absolute opposite. We've found a really compelling use case for the technology, solving some critical problems that actually need to be solved,” says Red 6 founder Daniel Robinson.