Centinel Systems is developing a camera system that mounts under a handgun like a weapon mounted light. The idea stemmed from the issues of Police body worn cameras. From my own experimentation of wearing a GoPro while shooting, body worn cameras are not that great. Often the chest does not point in the direction you want so you miss crucial information. Weapon mounted cameras work well but the problem is they only look where the weapon is pointed at. So you often see a lot of ground rather than the target down range. The other problem with a weapon mounted camera is that it does not look where your head is looking. Another major problem is that now the officer has sacrificed having a weapon mounted light to ID threats.

However one step at a time. The Centinel Systems camera will solve the problem of the body camera. Where the camera is not pointed at the threat. The camera system is smart and pairs with an app. The camera is designed to start recording as soon as the weapon is drawn from the holster. Since the camera is paired to a phone via an app, the app will alert the station where the officer’s location is. There is a small issue though with the auto recording feature. It only records once the gun is unholstered. So it wouldn’t be able to record the actual event that caused you to draw in the first place. I could see this as an auxiliary device that supplements the body camera.