User manual
Bodycam
This page is for the person holding the phone: the volunteer, the ground operator, whoever is on duty at an event. The bodycam is your phone plus a link: no app, no password. Whoever coordinates hands you a QR code or a link — everything else is below.
Opening the bodycam
Point your camera at the QR (or tap the link) and a page opens with the name of your channel — for example «Volunteer 03». No login is needed. The link is signed and lasts eight hours, unless your organization has set another duration in its profile (Bodycam link validity, from two hours to thirty days): when it expires, ask your coordinator for a fresh one.
If the link is personal, your name appears under the channel name: the live feed, the photos and the recording will carry it. If it is not your name, tell the room before you start.
As soon as the page is open you are reachable from the control room: orders arrive even when you are not broadcasting. That is why the one rule of the shift is: page open, phone within sight.
Going live
Tap Go live. The browser asks for the camera and the microphone, then for your location: say yes to all of them — your voice matters as much as the picture, the filters against wind and noise are already on, and the location puts you on the room's map. The red dot and the word LIVE mean the room can see you.
If the network wavers, the header shows Reconnecting… and the page reconnects by itself, never giving up: touch nothing, keep working. Stopping is your choice, with Stop — never the phone's.
Screen, battery and data
The screen stays awake while the page is open: that is intentional, because with the screen off the phone freezes everything — the stream and the orders. The evening's bill: broadcasting uses about one gigabyte per hour of data and drains a battery in two to three hours. Power bank in your pocket, and, if that is the plan, bodycam on only when the room asks for it.
The room knows where you are
Your GPS position is sent from the moment you tap Go live or Share position only. The second button sends the position without video: it is for the approach, when the room says «go there and wait». While it is on, the button is filled and the header reads Position shared with the control room — no video; Stop sharing switches it off. Stopping the live feed does not switch off a position you are sharing.
While you move, a point leaves at most every fifteen seconds; when you stand still, the last point is sent again every twenty seconds, so your dot on the room's map never goes stale. A line under the video tells you how it is going: GPS on: the room can see you on the map., or a red line if the GPS is not available. With each point the phone also sends its battery level, where the browser provides it (Chrome on Android does, iPhone does not): the room sees it before the phone dies.
The trail is kept according to your organization's rules: in search operations it is the document that says which sectors have been covered.
MD — man down
If you are in trouble and cannot talk, press and hold MD at the top for three seconds: it is the radio's «man down». While you hold, the button fills with red; releasing before three seconds cancels. At three seconds the alarm reaches the control room with your position, if the phone has one — no sound and nothing conspicuous on your screen, only a short vibration on phones that allow it.
Next to the button an amber • appears: the alarm has arrived and is waiting. It turns into a green ✓ when the room has taken charge. You do nothing else: if the room sends you support, the order it sends carries the link to your position.
Sometimes it is the room that chooses discretion: a notice in Silent mode arrives as a small banner at the top, with a short vibration on phones that allow it — no sound, no red, no flashing. That is deliberate: read it as soon as you can, without the people around you noticing, and tap ✓ on the banner to confirm.
Orders from the control room
When the room sends you an order, the screen fills with the text in large letters and flashes, the phone beeps and, where the browser allows it (not on iPhone), vibrates in bursts. The beep needs one touch on the page after you open it: any tap will do. You cannot miss it — that is the point.
Read it and tap CONFIRM READ: from that moment the room knows you have read it, with the time — and it already knew when the order reached your phone. That is the thing a radio cannot do. If you do not confirm, the alarm repeats every three seconds; if several orders are queued, they arrive one at a time, oldest first. A link in the order (a position, for example) can be tapped.
When the line The room can talk to you appears under the video, the room can also speak to you: its voice comes out of the phone, or out of the earphones, with nothing to touch.
Asking to speak
If you have something to tell the room, tap the hand icon at the top (Ask to speak). The icon turns amber: you are in the room's queue, ordered by waiting time. When the operator gives you the floor, they open your picture and listen to your audio: speak with the bodycam live. It is the radio's «go ahead», without the radio: you ask, you wait your turn, you speak.
The phone is not told when the room gives you the floor: the icon stays amber until you tap it again. The second tap withdraws the request, or turns the amber off once you have spoken. If the icon turns red, the request did not go through: tap again.
A photo is worth a report
The camera icon at the top (Take a photo) opens the phone's camera. The shot goes to the organization's archive with the position of that moment, the time, the channel and, if your link is personal, your name: it is archived evidence, with its fingerprint. It is the camera's picture, not a frame of the video — the one to use for a level gauge, a number plate, a crack. It works even when you are not live; without a position the photo leaves anyway, with no point on the map.
The icon turns green when the photo has reached the room and red when it has not: in that case, take it again.
In the harness: taps and earphones
With the phone tucked in the chest harness, screen against your chest, touch is out of the game. Harness mode turns the screen black and locks it against accidental touches. Unlocking takes a deliberate two-step, because a knee must not unlock it: hold a finger still on the screen for three seconds, then tap Unlock, which stays up for five seconds. Harness mode leaves you three ways that need no looking at the phone:
- Taps on the back. Knock on the back of the phone, with rhythm: 3 taps = «acknowledged» (confirms the order that has arrived); 3, pause, 2 = start the live feed; 2, pause, 3 = stop it; 3, pause, 3 = ask to speak. Each code answers with a different beep, so you know it went through; a rhythm it does not recognise gets a low beep, and a single tap is ignored. The rhythm is the protection: walking and bumps do not make a «3-2». If the phone has no motion sensor, or access to it is denied, the locked screen says so: on that phone taps do not work.
- Earphone buttons. With wired or Bluetooth earphones, play/pause (one click) = «acknowledged», next track (two clicks) = ask to speak.
- The voice stays with the scene. The live feed uses the phone's microphone, the one facing the environment — not the earphone's, which only hears your breathing. The note under the video says which microphone is talking: green if it is the right one, amber if a headset has taken its place.
The practical advice for harness duty: earphones to hear (the beep of the orders and the room's voice), taps to answer.
The backup recording
While you broadcast, the phone also records locally: the REC indicator under the video counts minutes and megabytes. If the network drops, the stream stops but the recording keeps going — nothing is lost. If the browser cannot record, that line says so.
When you stop, the Save the recording / Delete bar appears, and it comes back every time you reopen the page as long as something is still unsaved. Save the recording opens the phone's share sheet (Files, AirDrop, Drive) or downloads the file — MP4, or WebM if the browser does not record MP4. Saving does not empty the phone: once the file is safe, tap Delete, which asks for confirmation. Nothing deletes itself: it is your evidence. You need free space on the phone — again, about one gigabyte per hour. If space is running out, the recording stops and says so.
If something goes wrong
The network dropped: do nothing — the page reconnects by itself and the local recording keeps going. You closed the page by mistake: reopen the link, the unsaved recording is still there. The phone is almost dead: tell the room (by voice into the bodycam, or as instructed) and plug in the power bank; on Android the room already sees your battery level while your position is being sent. The radio, if you have one, remains the safety net: the system is built so you should not need it, not to forbid it.