Beyond a buzz in your pocket
In consumer electronics, haptics usually means a phone or controller buzzing to confirm a tap. In robotics, haptics is a much richer idea: it's the transmission of force and tactile information so that an operator, or the robot itself, can perceive contact, pressure, texture, and resistance rather than just seeing them on a screen. A vibration motor tells you something happened. A haptic interface tells you how hard something is pushing back.
This distinction matters because vision alone is a poor substitute for touch when a task involves contact. A camera can show a gripper closing around an egg, but it can't tell an operator how close that gripper is to crushing it. Force and tactile feedback close that gap by turning invisible physical quantities, like grip pressure or resistance to a surface, into something a human can feel or a controller can measure and act on.