Review of the Boblov C18/C19 W1 and W2 pocket body cameras

Boblov is a maker of low end police body cameras, that has four interesting small shirt pocket varieties. I tried them all. The W2 was by far the winner:

It clips to a pocket, lasts about 2 hours but can be recharged while recording.
I like the pocket clip, it’s less aggressively obvious than body cam, and does not get in the way of free motion. It has a handy tactile button for snapping a still WHILE recording video. Night vision is decent, with LEDs.

Downsides of the W2 are that the status LED is not at the top, so can’t be seen while recording. And the battery requires disassembly of the device to change as it wears out. As with any pocket clip device the aim is affected by how tight your clothing is worn (pocket clips may not work for women with larger breasts).

My inspections often run 4-9 hours, so but an extra battery pack works fine. The video is uncompressed in 20 minute chunks, so is not suitable for archive unless processed. It’s a USB drive for watching video.

Setting the time is about as crude as it gets.


The C18 and C19 are higher end products, more solidly built, but by people with no sense of function. The process of starting and stopping video is stupid. The pocket clip gets in the way of starting and stopping video, and while the status LED moved to the top, it’s too dim to see. A real fail, right down to the mini USB power connector (remember Mini-USB? At least you get to use your old cables).

The W2 has no app. For the C18/C19 Installing the app likely opens your phone to China government backdoors. Don’t.

The W1 battery life is too short to consider seriously.

About $90 on Amazon https://amzn.to/36qpJhz