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.

5 Responses to “Winplus AC13268-72 Beacon GPS Tracker”

1. TK says:

   May 1, 2010 at 12:00 am

   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.
2. R. Brooks says:

   April 19, 2010 at 12:00 am

   I bought my first GPS, a Trimble FlightMate in 1989. It was complicated, but after an hour, I was using it and amazed. I even took it with me to Somalia, Africa when I traveled there for Operation Restore Hope. Since then, I have owned half a dozen GPS systems, the current one in my airplane is a highly sophisticated Garmin 496 having XM Weather. I mastered all my GPS units (and a $10,000 LORAN) but I am at a total loss how to get the Beacon GPS Tracking unit to work.

   I received this as a Christmas gift (2009) from my wife and opened the package up while we were away from home during Christmas… I kept it in the closet for a couple of months and in the process of doing so, I must have lost the manual during Christmas. Not to worry, a manual can be downloaded from the WinPlus website (but they only allow you to download ONE PAGE, not the whole manual. There isn’t any information to tell you how to prep the unit for tracking in the SINGLE PAGE MANUAL on their website… and calling the company places you in voicemail-hell. I gave up trying to talk to them on the phone.

   This evening, my unit locked up in the “USB Connect” mode. I was trying to interface it with my laptop when it seized-up. I can’t even get it to turn off or re-cycle to a different phase and there is no way to pull the battery, in an attempt to re-set the unit. Should the battery ever need replacing, you are simply out of luck.

   If you visit their website, you are not able to download their newest firmware… Click on their link, and a second later it reads “page not available.”

   Save yourself some grief and go with something other than a product made by WinPlus… I suspect the couple of “positive” reviews I’ve found on the internet about this product were written by employees who work for WinPlus.

   Since mine is totally useless, I’ll probably make a video to put on YouTube, showing it in the “USB Connect” mode, while being cut in half on my band-saw and then being tossed into a garbage can… it has no other value than being a hunk of garbage sitting in a landfill.
3. M. Kohls says:

   August 3, 2009 at 12:00 am

   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.
4. R. Tyloch says:

   May 22, 2009 at 12:00 am

   This device is perfect for anyone. I have purchased 6 of them from Sam’s Club at 79.95 and had no problems. Lets just say anyone who can’t get this to work should give it to their teenager to set up for them. Easy set up and great Google Earth inforamtion. I own a Executive Limousine service and this is the best, knowing how drivers are driving and where they went with the vehicle (Makes them not cheat on time slips when they know I know whats going on). If you cant figure how to use this then I suggest you go back to school and learn how to read past the 5 grade to understand how easy this is to operate.
5. Judy E. Davis says:

   May 9, 2009 at 12:00 am

   I purchased this unit from Sams Club for $79.95. I found the instruction manual to be less than adequate for setting up the unit, so small you can not see it with 20/20 vision. Had to contact customer service which took for ever with little results. I returned this “piece ofr junk” back to Sams Club and purchased a TravelEyes on ebay. Cost a little more, but much better unit.