I can smell and hear my co-workers from my cubicle just fine. In the floor I'm on we have accountants, developers, the help desk, people that write contracts, and our travel desk. There is a lot of competing noise about a ton of different topics. To those, including my boss, that say as remote we miss out on the overhearing about an issue and coming up with a solution, I present you that I overhear about how accounting is categorizing funding, or whether contracts need to have contractors submit insurance more regularly. The developers all have on noise canceling headphones and send chat/email. On really fun days someone cooks fish in the microwave in the nearby kitchenette, but usually it's just smelling the dozen or so cubicles around me.