If you have spent any time in an office building in the Hartford area — or, well, anywhere — you’ve probably encountered a product made by Wallingford-based Sensor Switch and not even realized it.
The 20-year-old company makes the electronic devices that turn the lights on or off when someone enters or exits a room. It’s a major player in the market for these devices – known as occupancy detectors — with about 40 percent of the market nationwide.
Of course, in New England, they have about 80 percent of the market, said Brian Platner, president and owner of the firm.
Things really took off for them when, shortly after Sensor Switch started, the company developed a technology that uses both infrared and sound to monitor lights, a technology Sensor Switch calls “microphonic.”
In layman’s terms, that means the switch can “hear” if a person is in the room, even if it can “see” them, and keeps the lights on. Anyone who’s ever been stuck in a public restroom and the lights turned off knows how nice that technology is.
Sensor Switch has helped wire a lot of the buildings in and around downtown Hartford. The Hartford Courant building, for instance, is wired with Sensor Switch devices. So is the office of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. The UConn Health Center in Farmington has about 13,000 Sensor Switch devices controlling the hospital’s lights.
Most schools and state buildings in Connecticut run on lights made by Sensor Switch.
One wouldn’t think so at first, but light switches, at least the kind Sensor Switch makes, are big business, largely because of modern building codes. For a variety of reasons, light switches that sense a person’s presence are required in most public buildings in the country, meaning a ready-made market for the company.
Energy costs are another. “When the price of electricity rises it has a direct impact on our product sales,” Platner said.
Those sales so far have been stellar. Sensor Switch sells more than $20 million worth of products a year, and is growing at a 20 percent clip, Platner said. That growth has also fueled a rapid expansion of the company’s headquarters on Northrop Road.
Right now the company has about 28,000 square feet, and is in the process of acquiring another 9,000. Within a few years, Platner says the plan is to take more than 45,000 square feet total.
It’s also added quite a few manufacturing jobs. Four years ago, Sensor Switch had 39 employees. Today, that number has swelled to 107 — past the traditional threshold for a “small business.” Platner said he expects that growth to continue.
Not bad for a company that was started in a basement in a Guilford.
The secret? A constant focus on making their technology better and finding new ways to use it.
“I am an engineer and that’s the flavor of the company,” he said. “And that’s the reason we’ve done so well with manufacturing.”
Contributing writer Ken St. Onge blogs about manufacturing in Connecticut at NutmegMachine.com
