Winplus AC13268-72 Beacon GPS Tracker

by Winplus

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 12 x 10 x 3 inches ; 14.4 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B001PX43E0
• Item model number: AC13268-72
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,401 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Beacon GPS Tracker by Winplus helps track your children, or your employees driving habits with this easy to use product. Track any vehicle's location, speed and time with this Non-Real Time Tracking Unit. No subscription necessary just download the software to your computer, calibrate the tracker and you are ready to go.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Teen Tracking Unit, August 2, 2009

By 

M. Kohls - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Winplus AC13268-72 Beacon GPS Tracker (Electronics)

This unit works just as advertised and is very accurate. Set up was reletively easy. All you have to do is install a couple small programs on your PC (I have Vista on my PC and the SW works great)and provide a link to Google Earth. Calibration of the GPS is about 5 simple steps. The only complaint that I have is the instructional text in the supplied manual and on line is a little hard to read (not that big of a deal). I bought this system to keep an eye on my teenager. I personally don't look at it as a means of spying but rather a continual supervisor. Kids will drive better if they know that you can track them whenever you want. This system allows you to view where and when they drove as well as the speed of the vehicle along the route. This information is pulled from the system when they return home. This system will NOT send you this information real time as they are driving. If you want a device to do that with, plan on spending more for the GPS device as well as maintaining a service with a cell provider exclusive for the device.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good little gadget for the price, May 1, 2010

By 

TK (AZ) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Winplus AC13268-72 Beacon GPS Tracker (Electronics)

I was needing a device with a "tracking key" type functionality, but did not need the tracking key price or ability to be hidden from view. This Winplus Beacon does the job. Just make sure you update the unit and software with what's available on the winplus website - don't use the included CD software. And remember to follow the short initialization routine the first time you use it.

PROS: Does what it's supposed to do; keep a record of it's gps location saved to memory. Has some selectable modes and recording rates, and a compass feature that can help guide you to pre-selected waypoints. The locational accuracy of the gps is very good. Unit starts up quickly and locks on to a variety of satellites well. The internal battery life seems good - I've only used it for periods of about three hours at a time, and that hardly makes a dent in the power meter bar. Plus it comes with a car power code. While in use, one can switch between various displays on the small screen such as latitude/longitude, speed/altitude, compass bearing, etc.

CONS: Clunky software. At first, it seems OK. Attach the unit and the program pops up and downloads the "trace(s)" from the unit. (a Trace is generated for each On and Off cycle of the unit, with 30 Trace 'slots' available, up to the memory limit of the unit).

If you double-click on a trace it opens a window showing the outline of the route taken on a grid, and a scrolling list of each waypoint with the time at that point. Not very useful though.

If you right-click on a trace you have options to save the trace or send it to Google Earth or Maps. If you send it to Google, it loads up and shows the starting point, a colored line for the route, and the end point. That's it.

You can also open a trace in a second winplus program (available from the website) that will "analyze" the trace and send it to Google Earth with an additional bit of info marked and mapped: the location of the highest speed achieved on a route. That program also allows you to define a 'speed limit' setpoint that will then highlight any speed over that setting, and include placemarks on the Google Earth map. So this could be somewhat useful.

If you save it as a waypoint .txt file, that file includes latitude, longitude and date/time info for each recorded point. But, oddly and aggravatingly, the data does not include the speed or altitude info. This is annoying. The speed, at least, is being recorded in the unit, as evidenced by the speed tracking feature mentioned above. So why not include it in the .txt file of data? Not sure about altitude data, but again, if available why not utilize it?

I've been using the .txt file output and loading it into an Excel spreadsheet that converts it into a Google Earth .kml file. This gives me location tracking placemarks every five seconds along a route. Very useful for my needs, but I would have liked to have speed info there as well.

Summary: A useful little device at a reasonable cost, with some caveats.

If any Winplus employees read this; PLEASE improve the software and/or units flash code to utilize and output as much data as is available. Don't limit what's available.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Parent's Best Friend for Tracking Young Drivers, February 28, 2009

By 

Cybergear - See all my reviews

This review is from: Winplus AC13268-72 Beacon GPS Tracker (Electronics)

If you are the parent of a young driver that tends to "wonder" all over with the family car this device could be your new best friend.

After you properly calibrate the unit (easy), just hide it under the seat before giving the keys to the kid. After they return (hopefully safely), simply retrieve the unit from the car, connect a cable and log onto Google maps to review all of the places your child took the car that evening.

This becomes a real easy way to verify whether or not your child is obeying any restrictions mom or dad has placed on the use of the family vehicle.