Terms of sale and use · safety notice
RobotStop is an extra layer. It replaces nothing.
Every emergency stop, guard, light curtain, interlock, procedure and training requirement you have today stays exactly as it is. RobotStop is added on top of them and is useful only while they remain in place.
Translations of this page are provided for convenience. If a translation and the English text differ, the English text governs.
The short version
RobotStop is a voice stop-request module: a supplementary protective measure that asks a machine to stop. It is not an emergency stop device in the sense of ISO 13850, it is not certified as a safety component, and it must never be the only thing protecting a person. If removing your existing emergency stops, guarding or procedures would make a cell unsafe, then adding RobotStop does not change that — because RobotStop is not a replacement for any of them.
1. What it is, and the words we do not use
RobotStop provides an additional stop-request input to the safety-related control system a machine already has. It is designed to an ISO 13849-1 Category 3 architecture with a target of PL d, so that certification is possible later without a redesign.
We do not describe RobotStop as an “emergency stop,” an “e-stop,” or “safety-rated,” and neither should you, in documentation, in risk assessments or to your own customers. Until a Notified Body type examination is complete, the correct description is:
Designed to ISO 13849-1 Category 3 architecture. Not certified as a safety component.
2. It does not replace your emergency protocols
This is the most important term on this page, so it is stated without qualification. RobotStop is not a substitute for:
- emergency stop devices, cables, pull-cords or mushroom heads;
- fixed or movable guarding, light curtains, scanners, mats or interlocks;
- the risk assessment for your machine or your application;
- safe working procedures, lock-out/tag-out, permits or exclusion zones;
- operator training, supervision or staffing levels;
- any control measure required by law, by standard, or by your insurer.
Removing, weakening, bypassing or deferring any existing protective measure because RobotStop is installed is a misuse of the product. Do not rely on it to stop a machine in circumstances where a person’s safety depends on the stop happening. Voice detection can fail to hear a word, and a host, a cable or a power supply can fail entirely.
3. Evaluation units
Units shipping today are pre-qualification evaluation hardware, supplied under an evaluation agreement for assessment and data collection. They are not for production use, they are not to be relied on for safety, and they may be required to be returned or destroyed on request. Performance figures published for the qualification protocol are release-blocking thresholds for a future qualified release; they are not measurements of an evaluation unit.
The goal of covering every spoken language and dialect describes the expansion program. The language catalog and globe do not establish current detection capability or qualification. Coverage must be documented for the supplied model, named varieties and operating conditions. Signed languages in the reference catalog cannot be detected through the microphone.
4. What remains yours
You, as the integrator, machine builder, employer or operator, retain responsibility for:
- the risk assessment, the safety concept and the validation of the application as a whole;
- deciding whether a voice stop-request is appropriate at all for your machine and your environment;
- installation, wiring, commissioning and periodic verification, including microphone placement and acoustic coverage;
- compliance with every law, regulation and standard that applies where the machine is used;
- informing and training the people who work near it, including what the device does not do.
We will help with any of this under an integration engagement, but the responsibility for the application’s safety does not transfer to us by our being involved.
5. Audio and privacy
Detection happens entirely on the device. There is no cloud service, no radio transmitter and no outbound network connection. Continuous audio is never stored. An optional short audio window around a trigger may be retained for diagnostics; it is off by default and visible in the configuration readout when it is on.
A device that listens in a workplace can still engage recording, monitoring, works-council and data-protection obligations that vary by country and by state. Those obligations are yours, and turning on audio retention is a decision to take with advice, not casually.
6. Compliance status
RobotStop is being developed against EMC and electrical-safety standards, and carries CE marking under the EMC and RoHS directives only. It is not certified under any functional-safety scheme, is not type-examined by a Notified Body, and must not be presented as a safety component in a machine’s conformity assessment. Ask us for the current status before you rely on any of it in a declaration.
7. No warranty for safety use
The product is supplied as described in its documentation and without any warranty, express or implied, that it is fit for protecting people, for preventing injury, or for any particular purpose beyond the documented specifications. No statement on this website, in a demonstration, or in conversation creates such a warranty.
8. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, our total liability arising out of or in connection with the product is limited to the amount you paid for the units concerned, and we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, for loss of production, or for damage arising from use of the product as a substitute for a required protective measure, from installation contrary to the documentation, or from modification of the hardware, firmware or configuration.
Nothing here limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.
9. Where it must not be used
Do not use RobotStop as a protective measure in applications where a failure to stop would be immediately life-threatening and no other protective measure is present; nor in nuclear, aviation, rail-signalling, medical, life-support or weapons applications; nor as the sole means of stopping a machine capable of causing serious harm.
10. Changes
Detection behaviour is frozen at each firmware release: the device does not learn or adapt in the field. Firmware, model and dataset versions are readable from the device and printed on the label, and any change affecting detection or safety logic triggers a full re-run of the qualification protocol before release. We may update this page; the version in force is the one published at the time you bought the unit, which we will supply on request.