Recently, a camera or an image sensor receiver based optical wireless communications (OWC) techniques have attracted particular interest in areas such as the internet of things, indoor localization, motion capture, and intelligent transportation systems. As a supplementary technique of high-speed OWC based on photo-detectors, communications hinging on image sensors as receivers do not need much modification to the current infrastructure, such that the implementation complexity and cost are quite low. Therefore, in this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of optical camera communication (OCC) techniques, and their use in localization, navigation, and motion capture. This survey is distinguishable from the existing reviews on this topic by covering multiple aspects of OCC and its various applications. The first part of the paper focuses on the standardization, channel characterization, modulation, coding, synchronization, and signal processing techniques for OCC systems while the second part of the article presents the literature on OCC based localization, navigation, motion capture, and intelligent transportation systems. Finally, in the last part of the paper, we present the challenges and future research directions of OCC.(OCC) [5]. FSO communication systems consist of a laser diode (LD) transmitter and a photodiode (PD) receiver. It typically relies on UV or visible bands, offers high rate transmission in a long distance, and can be used for a backhaul of communication networks. However, FSO communications need a strict alignment, and consequently, their cost at transceivers is high. Also, FSO communication systems suffer from atmospheric turbulence which can be mitigated by using different statistical channel models [6,7,8,9,10], robust modulation techniques [11,12], and accurate pointing and tracking methods [13,14,15]. On the other hand, VLC hinging on visible bands is an LD or light emitting diode (LED) transmitter and PD receiver-based medium-range communication technology. VLC is capable of offering high data rate within a range of tens of meters but does not consider multiple user access. The advancement of VLC systems has also led to enable various location aware indoor applications. Recently, several indoor localization systems based on VLC are proposed [16,17,18,19,20]. Interested readers are referred to [21,22], and the references therein for VLC based indoor localization and tracking methods. Nevertheless, the VLC technology suffers from both limited coverage and interference. Increasing the field of view of the LEDs improves the coverage; however, it increases the interference at the receiver. Signal-to-interference ratio based methods can be used to analyze the coverage and interference problems in VLC systems [23]. Different from VLC, Li-Fi is an LED transmitter based light networking technology that involves multiple user access, bidirectional communications, multi-cell handover, etc. The emerging Li-Fi supports mobile communica-