FAQs

What is Nosy?

Nosy is the world’s first decentralized scent intelligence network. It digitizes the sense of smell using NASA-licensed nanosensor hardware and AI, enabling real-time detection, analysis, and interpretation of volatile compounds across a wide range of applications—from healthcare and food safety to environmental monitoring and public safety.

Why is smell important to digitize?

Smell is a critical but neglected sense in AI. While trillions of words and images have been digitized to power text and vision models, there is no large-scale dataset or infrastructure for scent. Yet, smell plays a major role in safety, memory, emotion, and health.

How does Nosy work?

Nosy combines:

  • Hardware (NosyNode): A portable device with nanosensors to detect scents.

  • PoEM (Proof of Emergent Measurements): A decentralized validation system that ensures trustworthy, high-quality data.

  • LEM (Large Essence Model): A transformer-based AI model trained via federated learning to classify and generalize scent profiles securely and adaptively.

What are “Scent Missions”?

Scent Missions are user-driven campaigns that direct the Nosy network to collect scent data for specific purposes (e.g., detecting gas leaks, analyzing coffee aromas). Participants can earn $Nosy tokens by contributing validated scent data to these missions.

What are some use cases for Nosy?

Public Safety: Detect narcotics, explosives, and hazardous chemicals.

  • Healthcare: Noninvasive disease diagnosis using breath samples.

  • Environmental Monitoring: Real-time air quality sensing.

  • Food Safety: Monitor freshness and spoilage.

  • Robotics: Enable robots to “smell” and respond to chemical cues.

What is the $Nosy token used for?

The $Nosy token powers the ecosystem by:

  • Rewarding scent contributors and validators.

  • Supporting decentralized governance.

  • Enabling access to datasets, AI inference APIs, and future marketplace features.

  • Purchasing hardware and services within the platform.

Is Nosy open to developers?

Yes. Nosy provides APIs and SDKs for developers to build scent-native apps (“Snapps”) and contribute to the network. A decentralized infrastructure allows real-world deployments across diverse contexts.

Is Nosy’s data private and secure?

Absolutely. Nosy protects user data using end-to-end encryption, hardware authentication, and federated learning. Personal data never needs to leave the device to train the LEM.

What makes Nosy different from other scent technologies?

Unlike lab-confined systems or limited e-noses, Nosy’s decentralized, cryptographically secure, and continuously improving system allows it to scale globally, just like how language and vision AI models have.