The cost of healthcare is expected to grow enormously
in the coming years. To keep these costs limited, we
need better technological tools for self-monitoring and independent
aging and to put a stronger emphasis on wellness,
defined as a balanced and healthy lifestyle that avoids diseases
at every stage of life. In contrast to traditional medical
science that examines patients in laboratories, wellness has
so far been difficult to measure objectively. This situation is
changing due to the availability of wearable and pervasive
sensors, smartphones, and other body-worn devices that can
track and infer users’ activities. Technological advances in
this area are rapidly pushing forward. The range of methods
as well as the health domains where sensors have been used
for monitoring is proliferating. This has created a unique
opportunity to understand wellness in an integrative and
balanced framework. The goal of this survey is to summarize
the latest innovations in sensor technology and present the
state-of-the-art of personal wellness management systems
with the purpose of shedding light on where this field is
developing and where the future research opportunities lie.