2026 Trends in Safety Light Curtains

If you build or run machines, you already know this: a safety light curtain is no longer “just something on the safety BOM”. By 2026 it sits right in the middle of uptime, compliance and headache-free audits.

This piece talks to you as an engineer, EHS lead, or production manager. We’ll keep it simple, real, and a bit shop-floor.

Global safety light curtain market outlook 2026

By 2026 the market isn’t exploding, but it’s not sleepy either. Most analyst views land around mid-single-digit growth every year. In plain words: more lines, more robots, more curtains.

You can picture it like this:

Table 1 – Safety light curtain market signal to 2026

So if someone in your company still treats safety light curtains as a commodity add-on, that mindset is already a bit old.

Type 4 safety light curtains for high-risk machinery

On presses, robots, big metalworking lines, nobody want to argue with the risk assessment. Typ 4 safety light curtains stay the default choice around 2026.

Table 2 – Type 2 vs Type 4 and where they live

NEW STAR designs its core Sicherheitslichtvorhänge um EU Type 4 and ISO9001 production. That matches what most safety managers expect when they sign a machine acceptance report.

• For big presses and heavy machine tools, buyers usually look at Allgemeine Verwendung oder Schwere Maschine series.
• When you need finger or hand detection at the POU, you jump to a high-precision safety light curtain with tight beam spacing.

Short version: by 2026, Type 4 is still the boring, correct answer for serious hazards.

Connected safety light curtains with diagnostics and IO-style data

The other big shift is how light curtains talk.

More buyers now ask questions like:

• “Can I see how many trips this station had today?”
• “Can maintenance see misalignment alarms from SCADA?”

So you see more curtains with:

• OSSD outputs plus diagnostics over fieldbus or IO-style links.
• Built-in muting / blanking / EDM, so you don’t wire five relays for simple logic.
• Real status bits: channel failure, dirty lens, alignment info, nuisance trip counter.

H3 – Typical robot safety scene in 2026

Think about a palletizing cell:

• A Type 4 curtain protects the entry, with muting for pallets.
• Diagnostics go back to the safety PLC.
• The EHS engineer can see that Bay 3 trips 5x more than others, probably because a pallet stop is too close.

At NEW STAR we see more OEMs asking for custom I/O pinout, connector style and integrated cable on their Sicherheitslichtvorhänge so the curtain plugs straight into their standard safety I/O block. Less wiring time, less confusion for field techs.

Compact safety light curtain and ultra-thin designs for tight machines

In a lot of 3C electronics, small assembly and retrofits, the main problem is not “Is it safe?” but “Will it fit?”.

That’s why compact and slim designs grow fast in 2026:

• Kompakter Sicherheitslichtvorhang – short and slim housing, friendly for small packaging machines, elevators, light machine tools.
• Front ultra-thin and side ultra-thin housings – very small depth, so you can tuck them on the front edge of a frame without stealing work area.

For example:

• On a phone assembly line, a big bulky curtain will hit covers or fixtures. A front ultra-thin safety light curtain oder side ultra-thin version solves the “my door wont close” pain without ugly brackets.
• On compact case packers or top sealers, a Kompakter Sicherheitslichtvorhang helps the mechanical engineer keep the footprint small.

Form factor become a real spec now, not just “oh, by the way make it small if possible”.

Waterproof safety light curtain for washdown and sticky lines

Food, beverage and pharma lines have their own headaches:

• high pressure washdown
• caustic foam
• sugar, syrup, sauce and whatever else on the lens

By 2026, more projects just start with a waterproof safety light curtain instead of trying to protect a normal one with shields that never really work.

Typical spots:

• Bottle infeed and outfeed on fillers
• Carton erectors and case packers in wet zones
• Open conveyors in dairy and meat processing

Gear like the Wasserdichter Sicherheitslichtvorhang ties straight into this trend: IP-rated body, sealed connectors, and still Type 4 performance.

Is it overkill for a dry carton line? Maybe yes. But for washdown conveyors, it saves a lot of angry calls when someone sprays right into the beam.

Measurement light curtains and safe DWS / logistics systems

Logistics and e-commerce hubs are under pressure: more parcels, less time, no accidents. They need both dimensioning und protection in the same general area.

By 2026, it’s common to see:

• A guarding curtain to protect people around the conveyor.
• A dimensioning frame using Messung Lichtvorhänge to capture length/width/height for DWS.

The safety and measurement roles stay separate in the logic, but physically they live in the same kind of hardware frame. Using one supplier for both is a huge win for spares and wiring.

If you run sorters or DWS tunnels, having one partner who does safety curtains, measurement curtains and also basic photoelectric sensor pieces makes the life a bit easier for maintenance and for spare-parts buyers.

Industry use cases: presses, robots, water treatment and more

Let’s map all this to real plant life. Here’s how 2026 looks in different sectors.

Table 3 – 2026 machine safety scenes and typical curtain duty

You can see why NEW STAR positions as a Hersteller von Sicherheitssensoren für Maschinen aus einer Hand: Sicherheitslichtvorhänge, laser scanners, mats, interlock switches, photoelectric, measurement and flow. One OEM partner, many different duties.

What OEMs, integrators and EHS teams should do for 2026

To wrap it up, here’s what these trends really mean for you.

1. Pick a platform, not random parts
   Instead of buying one curtain here, one sensor there, more teams move to a single family that covers compact, ultra-thin, heavy duty, waterproof and multi-sided guarding. That’s where NEW STAR’s catalog fits: different housings, same DNA, same safety level, same support.
2. Plan OEM/ODM early
   If you’re an OEM or system integrator, involve the curtain supplier when you’re still sketching the guarding. Small changes—custom bracket, exact protective height, cable exit direction—kill a lot of install pain. NEW STAR’s OEM/ODM flow from sample to mass lets you lock those details before you freeze the machine design.
3. Actually use diagnostics
   Many plants still only care that OSSD goes on or off. But by 2026, the plants that win more uptime are the ones that use diagnostic bits, trip counters, alignment status, not only E-Stops. There is still many lines where data is there but nobody is reading it.
4. Keep language simple for operators
   A curtain with great tech but terrible HMI labels will still cause nuisance trips and bypassing. Clear LEDs, clear messages, and training in normal words beats fancy spec sheets.

In short, safety light curtains in 2026 are steadier, smarter and more tailored to real machines. If you’re tired of fighting mis-fits and half-custom setups, working with a focused manufacturer like NEW STAR that understands presses, robots, conveyors, DWS and flow monitoring is honestly the easier road, even if my English is maybe not perfect today.