"The number one concern with the Mark II was battery life," Peratt says of the previous generation Arbitrator BWC. Some agencies using the Mark II were shutting off features such as pre-event recording to try to milk more operating time out of the system.
To solve this problem, Peratt says the evidence management team at Panasonic brought in some of the company's top battery engineers and portable electronic device designers. Panasonic is one of the world's leading battery manufacturers. "So we went to the battery division and asked them to produce the highest capacity battery in the smallest compartment possible," Peratt explains. In addition, the electronics inside the BWC were re-engineered to minimize power drain.
The combination of the new battery and the re-engineered electronics gives the new Mark III system a battery life of 12 hours or more in standard configuration, which includes pre-event recording and Bluetooth triggering. The new Panasonic BWC can be set up to automatically begin recording when the lightbar on the wearer's vehicle is activated, when the wearer's vehicle experiences a certain amount of G-force, when the vehicle's weapons lock is released, and under other conditions.
Peratt says customers also want more rugged body cameras. "The problem is that if the camera breaks on duty it will probably break in a situation, and then you don't have video of the incident. Trying to explain that to the public can cause or increase controversy," he explains.
To make its BWC more rugged, Panasonic turned to some of the top experts in the field, the engineers who work on the Toughbook team. The result is that the new Arbitrator BWC Mark III is one of the most rugged body cameras on the market. It's rated IP67, which means it is dust tight and can be immersed in up to 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes. In addition, the new body camera is MIL-STD-810G compliant, which means it can survive extremes of heat and cold and has passed the six-foot drop test.
