The reed switch was patented in 1941 by Walter B. Ellwood, a Bell Labs engineer. Ellwood was looking to design a cheap and easily replaceable relay unit for switching telecommunications traffic ...

Panasonic has produced a 6pin DIP-style opto-relay that can switch 1.2kV at 750mA ... AQV209G is a truly interesting substitute for a lot of conventional reed relay applications, or as an replacement ...