Smartphone-integrated electrochemical (bio)sensors as smart and reliable analytical tools

Portable and easy-to-use analytical devices for biomedical and environmental monitoring are prone to changing the paradigm of sensor applications in daily life. Besides the several sensing principles used to address almost every analytical purpose, one of the main challenges entails making that technology easy to use by end-users to fill in the gap between sensor development and real application. Smartphones, being the most widely used mobile devices in the current society, match very well with this need. Indeed, smartphones offer the possibility to combine the most cutting-edge technology in electronic software (e.g., easiness of app development) and wireless data sharing (e.g., through the internet cloud) with sensor technology, to give birth to hand-held analytical tools that can carry out the entire sensing process, from the analysis to the management of the results. Such an integrated tools are expected to kick off a new era for healthcare/environment monitoring due to a superior balancing among sustainability, cost-effectiveness, real-time analysis, data sharing, and portability. The present book chapter displays a general overview of the most recent progress achieved in integrating electrochemical (bio)sensors with smartphone technology, aiming to inspire researchers towards conceiving novel all-in-one sensing approaches. Such affordable, reliable, modern, and eco-friendly devices perfectly meet the principles of Green and White Analytical Chemistry as well as address the requirements claimed by the United Nations in the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030, being able to boost effective interventions for water cleaning/sanitation and for good health/well-being by means of sustainable analytical solutions.