  The lack of an unambiguous signal for thermally produced dark matter
particles in direct detection, indirect detection, and collider searches calls
for broadening the search strategies by probing a wider range of dark matter
masses with different detection techniques. One of the most common approaches
is to search for nuclear recoils induced by dark matter particles scattering
off the target material's nuclei. Low-temperature detectors have proven to
provide the required performance to probe dark matter masses from 100 MeV/c$^2$
to 100 GeV/c$^2$ via this channel. Using scintillation light as an ancillary
channel is a powerful tool for particle identification and background
suppression at the keV-recoil energy scale. The CRESST-III experiment,
employing scintillating cryogenic detectors with highly sensitive transition
edge sensors and multi-target absorber crystals, achieved unprecedented
sensitivities to explore sub-GeV dark matter masses. COSINUS, instead, is a new
experiment exploiting the phonon-light technique using sodium iodide crystals
with the scope to clarify the long-lasting dark matter claim of the DAMA/LIBRA
collaboration. This article reviews the principle of scintillating
low-temperature calorimeters with emphasis on the benefits and challenges of
this technique for direct dark matter searches in light of the current status
and future developments.
