Reed relay in the context of Bobbin

In telecommunications, an electronic switching system (ESS) is a telephone switch that uses solid-state electronics, such as digital electronics and computerized common control, to interconnect telephone circuits for the purpose of establishing telephone calls.

The generations of telephone switches before the advent of electronic switching in the 1950s used purely electro-mechanical relay systems and analog voice paths. These early machines typically utilized the step-by-step technique. The first generation of electronic switching systems in the 1960s were not entirely digital in nature, but used reed relay-operated metallic paths or crossbar switches operated by stored program control (SPC) systems.

The reed switch is an electromechanical switch operated by an applied magnetic field. It was invented in 1922 by professor Valentin Kovalenkov at the Petrograd Electrotechnical University, and later evolved at Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1936 by Walter B. Ellwood into the reed relay. In its simplest and most common form, it consists of a pair of ferromagnetic flexible metal contacts in a hermetically sealed glass envelope. The contacts are usually normally open, closing when a magnetic field is present, or they may be normally closed and open when a magnetic field is applied. The switch may be actuated by an electromagnetic coil, making a reed relay, or by bringing a permanent magnet near it. When the magnetic field is removed, the contacts in the reed switch return to their original position. The "reed" is the metal part inside the reed switch envelope that is relatively thin and wide to make it flexible, resembling the reed of a musical instrument. The term "reed" may also include the external wire lead as well as the internal part.

A common example of a reed switch application is to detect the opening of a door or windows, for a security alarm.