Among diverse wearable techniques, insole‐based plantar pressure monitoring systems have surged as a leading technology to monitor patient's chronic disease progression. Such technological feat has been made possible due to the strong correlation between gait and disease status. Hence, insole‐based plantar pressure monitoring techniques are growing rapidly worldwide; with several research institutions and enterprises showing an increased interest in the field. This review intends to first explain the working principles of mainstream insole plantar sensing techniques and design considerations such as sensing material selection and electronics design requirements, and then the state‐of‐the‐art algorithms for plantar pressure distribution reconstruction. Following, this article will discuss disease monitoring applications and the extraction of disease features. Finally, insight regarding common challenges and their potential solutions within the field would be elucidated.

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Gait analysis has been proved to be a powerful and efficient means for health monitoring. Variety of nervous system diseases and emergencies can be detected by interpreting plantar stress distributions. Among gait analysis techniques, piezoelectric insole architectures receive boosting attentions due to its convenience for users to wear and its long-term and real-time monitoring ability. However, the complex integration of piezoelectric insole architecture limits its successful use for massive production for the Internet-of-health things (IoHT). Hence, in this article, we present a flexible printed circuit board and lamination-associated technique, which presents high detection sensitivity at 0.1 N, satisfying the need for assisting nervous system disease diagnosis, and showing strong potential for commercialization.

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Touch and vision perception are two important functions humans use to interact with the real world. To mimic human‐like abilities, tactile‐ and visual‐sensing‐based intelligent humanoids have emerged and are going through a fast phase of development. Studies have demonstrated that the combination of tactile and visual information not only enables humanoids to better learn the environment, but also allows them to have pseudocognitive ability. Being a new and rapidly developing field of research, a significant growth in articles reporting different aspects of sensing and related machine learning is being witnessed. To help readers comprehensively understand the fundamentals and insights, and the current state of the art, this review is compiled to explain the working mechanisms of tactile and visual sensing, introduce the application of intelligent humanoids in diverse scenarios, discuss current challenges, and predict future trends.