Landslide risk is increasing in many parts of the world due to growth of population and infrastructures. Therefore, an effort has to be made in developing new and cheap sensors for areas susceptible of landslides to continuously control the slope behaviour, until approaching failure conditions. The paper reported experimental data from smallscale physical models about the performance of Time Domain Reflectometry(TDR) and optical fibres, which act as the indicators of the incoming failure of slopes covered by unsaturated granular soils. Obtained results appear encouraging, since both sensors provide continuous information about the state of the slope, in terms of water content profiles and ongoing deformations, induced by rainwater infiltration, even immediately before the triggering of a fast landslide. Landslide risk is increasing in many parts of the world due to growth of population and infrastructures. Therefore, an effort has to be made in developing new and cheap sensors for areas susceptible of landslides to continuously control the slope behavior, until approaching failure conditions. The paper reported experimental data from smallscale physical models about the performance of Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) and optical fibers, which act as the indicators of the incoming failure of slopes covered by unsaturated granular soils. Obtained results appear encouraging, since both sensors provide continuous information about the state of the slope, in terms of water content profiles and ongoing deformations, induced by rainwater infiltration, even immediately before the triggering of a fast landslide.