Health monitoring of infant patients in intensive care can be especially strenuous for both the patient and their caregiver, as testing setups involve a tangle of electrodes, probes, and catheters that keep the patient bedridden. This has typically involved expensive and imposing machines, to track physiological metrics such as heart rate, respiration rate, temperature, blood oxygen saturation, blood pressure, and ion concentrations. However, in the past couple of decades, research advancements have propelled a world of soft, wearable, and non-invasive systems to supersede current practices. This paper summarizes the latest advancements in neonatal wearable systems and the different approaches to each branch of physiological monitoring, with an emphasis on smart skin-interfaced wearables. Weaknesses and shortfalls are also addressed, with some guidelines provided to help drive the further research needed.

Achieving large-scale, cost-effective, and reproducible manufacturing of stem cells with the existing devices is challenging. Traditional single-use cell-bag bioreactors, limited by their rigid and single-point sensors, struggle with accuracy and scalability for high-quality cell manufacturing. Here, we introduce a smart bioreactor system that enables multi-spatial sensing for real-time, wireless culture monitoring. This scalable system includes a low-profile, label-free thin-film sensor array and electronics integrated with a flexible cell bag, allowing for simultaneous assessment of culture properties such as pH, dissolved oxygen, glucose, and temperature, to receive real-time feedback for up to 30 days. The experimental results show the accurate monitoring of time-dynamic and spatial variations of stem cells and myoblast cells with adjustable carriers from a plastic dish to a 2-liter cell bag. These advances open up the broad applicability of the smart sensing system for large-scale, lower-cost, reproducible, and high-quality engineered cell manufacturing for broad clinical use.

Athletes are at high risk of dehydration, fatigue, and cardiac disorders due to extreme performance in often harsh environments. Despite advancements in sports training protocols, there is an urgent need for a non‐invasive system capable of comprehensive health monitoring. Although a few existing wearables measure athlete's performance, they are limited by a single function, rigidity, bulkiness, and required straps and adhesives. Here, an all‐in‐one, multi‐sensor integrated wearable system utilizing a set of nanomembrane soft sensors and electronics, enabling wireless, real‐time, continuous monitoring of saliva osmolality, skin temperature, and heart functions is introduced. This system, using a soft patch and a sensor‐integrated mouthguard, provides comprehensive monitoring of an athlete's hydration and physiological stress levels. A validation study in detecting real‐time physiological levels shows the device's performance in capturing moments (400–500 s) of synchronized acute elevation in dehydration (350%) and physiological strain (175%) during field training sessions. Demonstration with a few human subjects highlights the system's capability to detect early signs of health abnormality, thus improving the healthcare of sports athletes.

Eye movements show primary responses that reflect humans’ voluntary intention and conscious selection. Because visual perception is one of the fundamental sensory interactions in the brain, eye movements contain critical information regarding physical/psychological health, perception, intention, and preference. With the advancement of wearable device technologies, the performance of monitoring eye tracking has been significantly improved. It also has led to myriad applications for assisting and augmenting human activities. Among them, electrooculograms, measured by skin-mounted electrodes, have been widely used to track eye motions accurately. In addition, eye trackers that detect reflected optical signals offer alternative ways without using wearable sensors. This paper outlines a systematic summary of the latest research on various materials, sensors, and integrated systems for monitoring eye movements and enabling human-machine interfaces. Specifically, we summarize recent developments in soft materials, biocompatible materials, manufacturing methods, sensor functions, systems’ performances, and their applications in eye tracking. Finally, we discuss the remaining challenges and suggest research directions for future studies.