Optical chemical sensors are capable of continuously recording a chemical species and thus have found (and will find) numerous applications in areas such as the chemical industry, in biotechnology and medicine. Among the many optical methods are employed for sensing purposes, fluorescence has attracted particular attention because it is sensitive, has numerous parameters that can serve as an analytical information and knows effects unknown to other spectroscopies. The implementation of spectroscopic schemes into a useful sensing scheme has been hampered though, by the lack of appropriate materials including polymers and particles, indicator probes, molecular receptors, carriers, catalysts and fluorescent semiconductor materials. This article will address the progress made in the past years and some of the futures aspects and challenges.