Abstract
Recent advancement of flexible wearable electronics allows significant enhancement of portable, continuous health monitoring and persistent human-machine interfaces. Enabled by flexible electronic systems, smart and connected bioelectronics are accelerating the integration of innovative information science and engineering strategies, ultimately driving the rapid transformation of healthcare and medicine. Recent progress in development and engineering of soft materials has provided various opportunities to design different types of mechanically deformable systems towards smart and connected bioelectronics. Here, we summarize the key properties of soft materials and their characteristics in the context of wearable sensors and electronics. Details of functionality and sensitivity of the bioelectronics are discussed with applications in health, medicine, and machine interfaces. In addition, we introduce recent examples of bioelectronics that offer persistent human-machine interfaces to control prosthetic hands, wheelchairs, or computer interfaces.