Sure but simple presence / proximity type sensors are cheap. As are cameras. Human-safe is then basically a software feature. IMHO the whole 'cobot' media fad

Sure but simple presence / proximity type sensors are cheap. As are cameras. Human-safe is then basically a software feature. IMHO the whole 'cobot' media fad and deployments with humans are needlessly complex versus just handing over between dedicated human-only and robot-only motion envelopes. In industrial or small-scale automation settings, useful for a subset of tasks at best. For these special cobot cases, why not use a retrofit kit for third party arms? It makes more sense as would be more loosely coupled with inevitable hardware evolution and provenance. Hell, it'd even work with arbitrary industrial gear. Talk about a large retrofit market. Software people: that's a valid (and high fad-factor!) startup idea. Get some VC and go get 'em.