Bistable Relay

Bistable relays are particularly useful in applications where very low power consumption is important. This is because they only use a little bit of power while switching and nothing at all at other times! The switching is quite fast, it lasts typically only about 5 ms. The only disadvantage of bistable relays is that they are not fail-safe. When the power is removed from a normal relay it will return to the de-energised position. In the case of the bistable relay it will remain in the current state.