Strain-Insensitive Conductive Hydrogel Materials for Motion-Artifact-Free Flexible Bioelectronics

Flexible and stretchable electronics inevitably undergo stretching, compression, bending and torsion when conformally attached to skin, soft tissues and dynamic organs. While deformation-induced electrical variations act as target signals for motion sensors, they cause resistance/impedance drift, baseline shift and sensitivity degradation in physiological electrodes, temperature/chemical sensors, interconnects and stimulation devices, leading to motion artifacts and reduced long-term reliability. Hydrogels are pivotal materials for soft bioelectronic interfaces owing to their high water content, low modulus, tissue compatibility and ionic conductivity. However, their conductive networks are susceptible to structural reconstruction under deformation, dehydration, swelling and cyclic fatigue, meaning that stretchability is by no means equivalent to strain insensitivity. This review focuses on stable resistance/impedance and functional output within a specified strain window, this paper reviews three representative material systems, liquid metal (LM)-based composite hydrogels, conductive polymer/elastic network composite hydrogels, and hydrogen-bonded isotropic architectures. It further summarizes three design strategies-geometric and functional compensation, mechanical decoupling and strain isolation, and interfacial engineering for conductive network stabilization-and discusses their applications in wearable epidermal and implantable bioelectronics. Finally, unified evaluation metrics for strain insensitivity are proposed, with future directions covering high-conductivity-low-modulus synergy, long-term water/ionic stability, robust soft-hard interfaces, multiaxial deformation tolerance and scalable manufacturability.