Company Name: Utility, Inc,
Headquarters: Decatur, Ga
Signature Products: BodyWorn™ intelligent body camera system
Website: https://www.bodyworn.com/
1. Where did your company name originate from?
At the time of the company’s inception, we were building a combination of vehicle routers and map-based fleet software for the Utility Industry. The name “Utility” was relevant and available. Over time, as our company and product lines evolved to include digital evidence for law enforcement, “utility” began to stand for our company being able to provide products for LE that serve several functions.
2. What is your signature product and how does it work?
Our signature product is our BodyWorn intelligent body camera system. Securely mounted into the officer’s uniform, the BodyWorn camera is smart enough to activate depending on numerous policy-based triggers. Its built-in officer safety features include real-time officer down and gunshot detection alerting and reporting. It automatically offloads video to the cloud where it can be immediately accessed through our web-based digital evidence management system.
3. Why do you believe your products are essential to the police community?
Our products were designed with the officer in mind. Our philosophy is that we should never ask an officer to do something the technology could do for them. They are busy doing their jobs, we don’t want the technology to get in the way of that. It just works, so they can too.
4. What makes your company unique?
At the head of our company are innovative thinkers that have worked hard, not only to solve existing problems they saw with police technology, but take the technology to the next level, to make it a useful (utility) tool for law enforcement officers. Our company strives to stay a step ahead of the competition.
5. What is the most rewarding part of serving the first responder/local government community?
Knowing that we are making a difference with law enforcement agencies across the country. For example, one of our customer agencies (for body cams and in-car video) recently had an incident with an officer-involved shooting where the suspect at a traffic stop opened fire on an officer causing another officer at the scene to return fire, resulting in the death of the suspect. As tragic as the incident was, the officers involved were under scrutiny by the family and the public, being accused of wrongdoing. The department was proud to be able to provide all aspects of video, audio and metadata evidence to the public, preserving the reputations of the officers involved and avoiding frivolous litigation.
6. What’s next for your company? Any upcoming new projects or initiatives?
Our company continues to add new features to enhance BodyWorn, such as the new Smart Holster sensor to help trigger the body camera when an officer removes his/her firearm. We are also working on a project that will bring in-car video as you know it to the next level — Generation 2 In-car Video incorporating LPR. It’s some really great technology that we will be excited to roll out later this year.
