While the microfluidic device itself may be small, often the equipment required to control fluidics in the chip unid is large e.g. pumps, valves and mixing units, which can severely limit practical use and functional scalability. In addition, a large part of the costs are associated with fluidic control of the device, more specifically the valves and pumps. Recent research has shown that the integration of light-responsive materials within microfluidic devices can lead to the development of novel in-situ, microscale mechanical components with the potential to produce vastly simplified and highly efficient fluidic chip configurations. The use of integrated light-responsive materials requires less energy for operation and less dead volume between units through the elimination of significant amounts of tubing. The development of such smart devices reduces the costs, platform dimensions and complexity, contrasting greatly with existing microfluidic devices, which are not readily scalable due to their large dimensions relative to the microfluidic platform, forcing fluidic handling to occur off chip. An overview of the most recent developments will be presented for valves, mixers, transport and optical sensors.