InvizBox Go

InvizBox Go is a lightweight portable VPN router which allows you to secure all your devices, wherever you are, and whatever dubious public wifi hotspots you might have to use.

The unit creates its own hotspot, making it very easy to use. Connect your devices to the InvizBox Go network, connect the InvizBox Go to your target network, and all your internet activities are immediately protected by an industry-strength IPVanish-powered VPN.

The browser-based interface allows you to choose from 19 countries and hundreds of servers. Built-in Tor support gives you another welcome privacy option, or you can turn both modes off and use InvizBox as a simple wireless extender.

At 125 x 70mm, the InvizBox is around the size of a mobile phone. It's a little thicker, at 12.5mm, which lifts its weight to 300g, but that's still lighter than competitors such as BetterSpot and Keezel.

The InvizBox is powered via a USB cable. The developer claims its 5000 mAh will give you ten hours of battery life, which may be a limitation, but as a bonus, a USB output port means the unit can double as a portable power bank for charging other devices.

Prices start at $99 (£75) for an InvizBox plus two months VPN subscription. Opting for the $139 (£105) Silver plan gets you a 12-month subscription, while the $179 (£135) Gold plan covers you for two years, and all purchases are protected by a 30-day money-back guarantee.

InvizBox is good value for a VPN router, but it's worth considering the alternatives. Using a stand-alone VPN requires more work, as you must download, install and learn the various clients. It's also not as good at isolating your internet connection. You'll get more features and a more responsive interface, though, and it can be much cheaper. A NordVPN account supports up to 6 simultaneous connections, and has apps for desktop and mobile devices, but can cost as little as $79 (£60) for two years.

Setup

Our InvizBox Go arrived safely packed in a compact cardboard box, along with a zip-up protective case, a micro-USB cable, a couple of tiny 'Getting Started' sheets, and an InvizBox card with our wifi password.

We plugged the unit into our laptop, and a power LED began flashing green to show the InvizBox was charging. (This same LED comes in useful later by indicating the current battery level.)

There's no obvious On/ Off button on the InvizBox case, but that's because it's neatly concealed under the tiny logo. Press and hold for a couple of seconds, and a few moments later a wifi LED lights up to show its network status, which initially is red to indicate there's a little setup work required.

Once it's powered up, InvizBox creates a wifi hotspot called InvizBoxGo. Connect to this on any device, point your browser at inviz.box, and it automatically prompts you for the main wireless network you'd like to use, and its password.

That's enough to get InvizBox working as, effectively, a VPN router. The InvizBox creates an OpenVPN-based VPN tunnel to your nearest server, and when you connect other devices to the InvizBoxGo network, their traffic is redirected through the tunnel to your destination. There's no login or software required on any of your devices, everything is handled automatically by InvizBox and its VPN connection.

Configuration

Although the default InvizBox settings work just fine when you're getting started, logging back into the InvizBox administration interface reveals some other options and features you'll want to explore.

These start with a choice of VPN locations. InvizBox offers 19 countries across Europe and North America, with Australia, Brazil, Korea and New Zealand thrown into the mix. Pick a location, optionally choose a server (there are more than 100 servers available in the US, alone) and InvizBox automatically makes the connection.

Although this worked well for us, keep in mind that this kind of browser-based interface can't match the usability of a native VPN client. To choose a new location in ExpressVPN, for instance, you can click the Choose button and pick a country from the list. Takes three or four seconds. To do the same with InvizBox we had to click Choose, wait around ten seconds; click to view the drop-down list of countries, click again to select; click Save, wait another ten seconds; click Return to get back to the status window. 

InvizBox doesn't have any supporting VPN features, either. There's no indication of server load, for instance, and no favorites system to more easily return to an important server. If you discover that the server 'New York - nyc-ac24' enables connecting to Netflix, for instance, while 'New York - nyc-ac25' doesn't, InvizBox gives you no way to save or record that information. You'll have to note it somewhere else.

These problems aren't specific to InvizBox, they're typically what you'll see with hardware routers. But if you regularly need to change locations, they're worth keeping in mind.

InvizBox does have some notable extras, including optional Tor support. If the VPN doesn't do what you need, you're able to switch to Tor from the admin window, and anything which connects to the InvizBoxGo network will use Tor by default.

A third option enables using the InvizBox as a wireless extender, without the extra privacy or security layers. You probably won't use that very often, but it's good to have the flexibility.

A bonus Adblock feature blocks ads from some of the most common sources. We suspect this won't match your regular ad blocker, and the fact that it's turned off by default suggests it doesn't do a lot, but it's here if you want to try it.

There's plenty of status and troubleshooting information to help you figure out what's going on: local and external IP addresses, gateway, connected devices, active network connections, real-time graphs of network traffic and some very detailed logs.

VPN tweaks are a little disappointing - there aren't any beyond the choice of location, not even protocol - but there are a lot of others. If you want to set a custom NTP server for the device, add a HOSTS file or configure DNS forwarding rules, it's all available here.

Overall, the InvizBox admin console doesn't score well for VPN features or usability, but it covers the basics, Tor support is a plus, and experts will appreciate the wide range of network and other technical settings and options.

Performance

Our performance testing ran into an odd issue almost immediately. Even though we were in the UK, and the manual said InvizBox would connect us to the nearest server, it actually said we were connected to Paris.

We checked the server's IP address, and noticed a possible explanation: it seemed to be based in the UK. That's good, as perhaps it really was the fastest server. But it also suggests some InvizBox servers might not always be in the country they claim. We didn't notice an issue with any other locations, but that still has to be a concern.

Our website unblocking tests didn't uncover any problems with locations, and InvizBox allowed us to access content on BBC iPlayer, YouTube, Netflix and more. That's significantly better than many standard VPN services.

The story with performance was a little more mixed. Download speeds were relatively low when compared to standalone commercial VPNs, but they were reasonably consistent, and good enough for streaming almost anywhere: 12Mbps for our nearest UK servers, up to 16Mbps in some European locations, 10-15Mbps in the US, even UK to Australia connections managed around 8Mbps. (As a comparison, non-VPN connections to our standard wifi router averaged 24Mbps).

If you're planning a heavy-duty download session, there may be other issues to worry about. We noticed the InvizBox could get quite hot, especially when it's left on charge and is under heavy load.

VPN routers such as the InvizBox get full control over their connections, and so don't usually have any DNS leaks. Sure enough, our privacy tests showed no DNS or data leaks at any time.

We finished the review by pointing a browser at the InvizBox support site and checking out the help on offer.

The web knowledgebase is limited to just 40 articles, and 15 of those are about the firmware. The rest are short on detail and unlikely to help you solve any tricky problems.

There's a PDF manual available, but that also covers no more than the basics. The DHCP and DNS panel in the Admin console has more than 40 settings relating to what it calls 'a combined DHCP-Server and DNS-Forwarder for NAT firewalls', for instance, but this is all the manual has to say about it:

"The DHCP and DNS page provides a more in-depth view of the DHCP and DNS settings of the device. Most of these fields will not work if modified"

Well, thanks.

Fortunately, there's also a real support team waiting to help you. You can only contact them via a web form and the website warns you might have to wait 24 hours for a response. Our experience was much better, though, with our simple product question receiving a friendly and helpful reply in around two and a half hours.

Final verdict

InvizBox Go looks good and is a simple way to protect multiple devices when you're on the move. Speeds are only average, but they're good enough for browsing and streaming.

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