Gun-mounted cameras for LEOs are becoming a thing. A Minnesota department just announced they’ll be equipping their officers’ duty guns with Viridian’s FACT Duty Weapon-Mounted Lights. It’s an auto-on system that begins recording as soon as the pistol is drawn from the holster.
Now Viridian’s announced they’re offering their new X Series Gen 3 lights and lasers with HD cameras for the consumer market. As we saw in a recent defensive gun use, the presence of video evidence can mean the difference between a clear-cut case of self-defense and a situation that could be questioned by police or prosecutors.
Here’s their press release . . .
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – August 30, 2018 – Viridian Weapon Technologies has expanded its popular X Series Gen 3 product line to deliver even more robust features with the addition of a full-HD digital camera and microphone. The new X Series Gen 3 with Camera product line creates an entirely new category for personal protection, training and recreational/competitive shooting. The first two products from the lineup—X5L Gen 3 Green Laser with Camera and XTL Gen 3 Taclight with Camera—have begun shipping and are now available for purchase online and at select retailers.
“In 2017, we introduced the world’s first Weapon-Mounted Camera with a light and optional laser designed to clearly capture full-HD video and crisp audio from handguns and long guns,” said Viridian President and CEO Brian Hedeen. “This technology was developed specifically for law enforcement, addressing limitations officers can face with body cameras. Today, we’re excited to give consumers the same HD video and microphone capability on our popular X Series Gen 3 product offerings. The X5L® Cam and XTL Cam are designed to give customers a convenient, high-tech solution for capturing footage while training, competing, defending, or just having fun.”
X Series Gen 3 with Camera
The X Series Gen 3 with Camera comes standard with a 500 lumen LED light, green laser (on X5L Cam), multiple operation modes and Viridian’s proprietary INSTANT-ON® technology. Combined with a 1080p full-HD digital camera and microphone, this unique solution provides convenient playback for training, range time or competitions and gives legally armed citizens an added level of reassurance when carrying or in a home defense situation. Additional uses include recording footage during action/water sports, bow hunting or fishing, turkey hunting or any other close-range hunting.
When users choose to utilize Viridian’s INSTANT-ON technology, the unit automatically activates the laser, light and/or camera, depending on the pre-programmed settings, whenever the firearm is drawn from its holster. Not only does this eliminate risk of failure to manually turn on the device during a personal-defense scenario, but it allows users to conveniently capture footage to help review and correct shooting techniques or show off days at the range with their friends.
The highly advanced camera provides an unobstructed view from the end of the firearm, making it an ideal replacement for homemade action cams or supplement to the everyday carry setup.
Like all X Series products, the new camera models feature a super sleek design that fits in most holsters designed for the Streamlight® TLR1®. A removable, rechargeable battery eliminates the need to ever buy batteries again while on-board charging with indicator lights allows users to know the exact status in real time. Paired with waterproof construction and universal mounting, the X Series Gen 3 with Camera is one of the most technologically advanced weapon-mounted accessories available.
The X5L Cam and XTL Cam feature 1920 x 1080 HD video, integrated microphone, removable/rechargeable battery and more. The X5L model also delivers a powerful 5mW green laser sight (510-532nm). Both include a 2-year limited warranty.
More information on the new X Series Gen 3 with Camera product line can be found at ViridianWeaponTech.com/x-series-gen3-learn-more.
About Viridian Weapon Technologies
Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Viridian Weapon Technologies is devoted to applying cutting-edge technology to design compact, powerful self-defense products for the civilian, military and law enforcement markets. Viridian® is the leader in weapon-mounted technology and responsible for a number of firearm innovations including green and red laser sights, LED weapon-mounted illuminators and several shooting accessories including the Tacloc® Holsters. Viridian products are designed and built in the USA. More information is available at www.ViridianWeaponTech.com.
The footage will still magically vanish, get lost, destroyed, or the camera will be blocked with electrical tape. You don’t ask evil to be nice, you hammer it with force until it stops being evil.
They are still looking for the over 30,000 Hillary Clinton e mails on her sever in the FBI forensics lab. Oh wait, it was never examined by the FBI. Never mind.
Ask China for them.
“arc”, I question your intellect. Assuming that the law enforcement and military personnel who are our defense against evil is simple-minded, and isn’t worthy of serious consideration. Left-wing politics and their agent provocateurs in the press are constantly bombarding us with similar bombast like your statement, “footage will still magically vanish, get lost, destroyed, or the camera will be blocked with electrical tape”, which are words whose only purpose is to inflame the passions of the radical left. Add to that your statement, ” You don’t ask evil to be nice, you hammer it with force until it stops being evil.”, begs the question who is the evil you are speaking of? I certainly hope you do not mean law enforcement officers and our military, because they are the only thing between you and true evil in the form of criminals and those countries that have made it clear they are intent on global domination and the extinguishment of liberty and justice for the victims they leave in their wake when they invade their neighbors like Crimea and Ukraine, as well as the ones choosing to continually threaten and destabilize their neighbors.
Besides this has nothing to do with LEO or military use of technology, it is about that technology being offered in an appropriately engineered package for civilian use.
Does anyone remember ‘Shimmer’, the floor wax that’s also a dessert topping?
Lights and lasers together, kinda like that…
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/shimmer-floor-wax/n8625
The promotional videos look just like I thought it would. Kinda cool. I wouldn’t mind picking one up on the used market.
Just because a camera see’s something doesn’t mean the officer see’s the same thing. Tunnel vision happens to everyone. Including civilian CCW people, in a defensive shooting. That is why you need “gun fighter” insurance. To pay for a good lawyer. Not a public defender.
The U.S. Army had cameras on its armed helicopters, Apaches and Kiowa Warriors. The recording systems used to be full of bugs and seldom worked. As the GWOT kicked off, the technology for recording the video got much better. During OIF, the early years, we engaged a target, no video, no problem. By the time OIF was winding down, if you had an engagement and no video, you were open to a formal investigation to prove your shot was within the ROE.
Leaders and skeptics quickly develop a dependency to armchair quarterback every shot fired. Video of engagements gives them the tool to do this. The leadership in the Army, as well as in Law Enforcement are going to assume every shot was a wrongful act if a video does not clearly exonerate the shooting. We learned this in the military and it will only become more prevalent with the LE and civilian DGU scenarios.
Ragnar, you hit the target on your remarks about technology like this being used by politicians to inject their political power into combat operations against hostiles. The political class just love to get us into these kinds of things and then want to micromanage warfare as if they have the power to make it somehow clean, neat and tidy. They have a cartoon view of what warfare is, and the radical left is happiest when they can crucify the military who does the fighting. It’s ironic that these critics will pile on and denigrate the people in combat arms roles in the military because they don’t do their job according to some outsider’s idea of how to fight an enemy on the ground who is unrestrained in their application of force against us. Civilian politicians have been affecting the conduct of war since 1950, and the evidence is in how the cessation of hostilities has been accomplished. Allowing the enemy to escape defeat by ginning up popular opinion against the military has been one of the primary tools that politicians have used to unfair advantage ever since. They in essence aid the enemy by the propaganda war they wage in the streets of America, and this has force many conflicts to end by US forces being withdrawn from the combat area unilaterally instead of pursuing the inevitable end of hostilities when the enemy’s ability to continue to mount armed opposition has been destroyed. That is how World War Two ended – the axis powers lost the ability to oppose the allies in the field and had to surrender. Korea, on the other hand was the first politician run conflict in history, and they did a dandy job of taking defeat from the jaws of victory with the Panmunjom armistice. The UN forces had all but decimated the North Korean and Chinese military in battle, but the political class decided a cease fire was their favored end to conflict. That produced a situation where we have continued to be attacked by North Korea for 60 + years, and still they do all they can to destabilize the Korean Peninsula. Then we have the Vietnam war, where US military power defeated the North and the VC in every engagement they came out to fight in, and the Paris Peace Talks coupled with the US left anti-war movement made it politically appealing to Richard Nixon to withdraw from Vietnam. In both of those situations politics forced the end of hostilities before the impending surrender of the enemy which allowed festering situations to develop and allowed the empowerment of hostile communist regimes to continue to exist.
American prosperity, power and prestige around the world are all negatively impacted when we withdraw in the face of the enemy, in most cases an enemy far less sophisticated that we are. They only know that they will be supported and be claimed victors unless they are forced to surrender. These bad actors on the world stage capitalize on this and our current crop of enemies are counting on the US to leave the battlefield prior to their defeat because of the left’s willingness to see America fail to prevail. So you see, what you have described in your post so well is a continual problem that seems to be driven by the left’s willingness to destroy everything that is America to the rest of the world. It’s ironic that they want to support unrestricted levels of migration here while wanting to toss liberty in the trash and freedom to the ground where they can spit on and stomp it into the dust, thereby destroying the reasons all the illegals want to come here for. If they succeed, where then will the masses go?