Just two years ago, antivirus company Bitdefender went in a new direction with a hardware solution for smart home security. Its Box device was the first to market, but not the last, and has since been joined by a burgeoning crowd of competitors. But Bitdefender maintains a competitive edge with a centralized approach to security that lets you protect PCs, mobile devices, and even IoT devices from within a single app interface. The new Bitdefender Box 2 is meant to be the center of your secure home, guarding against attacks on your network. While it requires a subscription and lacks the simplicity of an all-in-one router solution, the Box 2 counterbalances this with unlimited access to the excellent Bitdefender Total Security suite, in addition to its own formidable security features.
Reading the Price Tag
At $249, the new version of the Box is pricier than its predecessor, but still south of the Norton Core's $279. The F-Secure Sense clocks in at a positively affordable $199, which was the original price of the Box when it debuted in 2015. As of this writing, the original, smaller Bitdefender Box is also still available for $99.
As with all such security devices, the price tag includes a subscription fee. After the first year, it costs $99 per year to continue using all the bells and whistles that come with the Box 2. That might sound like a lot, but it's actually a pretty sweet deal, considering that you get unlimited access to the company's software, which we discuss below.
At close to $300, the Box 2 is definitely in the upper tier of routers, but it's by no means at the top. The Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7200 Smart Wi-Fi Router (R9000), for example, will set you back $500.
Similar Products
Symantec Norton Core Router
F-Secure Sense
Google Wifi
Linksys Velop
Google OnHub
Asus Google OnHub SRT-AC1900
Asus RT-AC88U Dual-Band Router
D-Link AC5300 Ultra Wi-Fi Router (DIR-895L/R)
Netgear Nighthawk X10 AD7200 Smart WiFi Router (R9000)
TP-Link Talon AD7200 Multi-Band Wi-Fi Router
Bitdefender Box
UnBoxing
Whereas the first version of the Bitdefender Box was small and unobtrusive, version two is big and bold. Like its little brother, the whole thing is clad in glossy white plastic, with inset black perforated panels for venting. The new unit is slightly triangular, with one white panel at the front and a black inset panel at the back containing its ports. The overall build quality of the Box 2 is very good, although it doesn't feel very substantial in your hand.
The Box 2 ships in stylish, well-designed packaging and includes an AC power adapter and an ethernet cable. To configure the Box 2 you'll need a device running iOS or Android, as well as access to the internet.
The front panel has a LED ring underneath it to display the Box 2's current status. The F-Secure Sense ($199.99 at F-Secure) has a similar system, but it displays a set of confusing runes that you have to interpret with the help of an included glossary. We did experience one LED-related hardware issue in testing: the Box 2 began flashing its LED continuously, which is not normal behavior. A quick reboot solved this problem. The Box 2 continued functioning normally while it was flashing, so it was more of annoyance than a dire problem.
The upright, fanless design lets air travel naturally through the Box 2. Peek through the grill on the top and you see little more than a single board inside the casing. Somewhere on that little board is a Dual Core Cortex A9 1.2GHz processor, with 1GB of DDR3 memory and 4GB of internal storage. The new Box supports concurrent dual-band wireless 2.4GHz and 5Hhz with MU-MIMO in a 3x3 antenna configuration. It supports IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wave-2 at AC1900.
Powered by a single AC jack, there are only two ports: one LAN port and one WAN port of the 10/100/1000 BaseT Ethernet variety. A small reset button lets you wipe the device, should you need to.
Although the Box 2 can function as a standalone router, Bitdefender says that it works better as a supplement, rather than a replacement, for a router. This is the same line that the company took with the first version of the Box. Other companies, however, embrace the idea of a security box that is also a router. The F-Secure Sense functions as a router and a clock. The stylish Norton Core ($48.24 at Amazon) has surprising networking capabilities under its geodesic hood, from its custom designed antenna configuration to its beam forming feature that can target additional power to keep you in touch even as you move around your home.
Still, none of the consumer security devices we've reviewed so far will win any awards for being the best router. Their strengths tend to lie in the realm of security rather than speed or robustness of signal.
Getting Online
A major difference between the Box 2 and its competitors is that Bitdefender no longer has a stand-alone app for the Box 2. Instead, the Box 2 capabilities have been baked into the company's Central app. That's excellent, because the Central app can already provide status updates and run security scans for every device in your home running Bitdefender software. No other vendor has come close with this kind of integrated approach, and it's a major point in Bitdefender's favor.
The Central app is key to the Box 2 experience, and it's necessary for setting up your Box 2. A button to start the setup process for a new Box appeared when we first activated the app, but we accidentally tapped away! Thankfully, you can go through the Box activation process from the Devices tab. It's handy, but easily overlooked.
Once the device is powered on, you join the temporary Wi-Fi network created by the Box 2. Next, you plug the device into your modem via the included Ethernet cable. The device then updates itself with signed code, much as the F-Secure Sense does.
After that, things get a little complicated, because, as mentioned, Bitdefender does not want you using the Box 2 as a standalone router. An included flowchart does an admirable job of explaining the preferred methods for setup. That said, anytime you need to include a flowchart in your instructions, you're not starting from a great place.
The first option is to connect the Box 2 to your modem and clone your ISP-provided router. Alternatively, you can connect the Box 2 to your existing router and place it in Bridge Mode. We also struggled to set up the BullGuard Dojo and F-Secure Sense devices, which have similarly confusing setups. It makes the simplicity of the Norton Core's all-in-one concept all the more appealing.
In our testing, we had little trouble getting our Box 2 online with our router in Access Point mode. The Central app guided us through the process, and even included instructions for making changes to our existing router.
We found the Box 2 to be much easier to set up than its predecessor. But we're of two minds about how Bitdefender quietly discourages using the Box 2 as a standalone router. On one hand, it lets Bitdefender focus on what it's best at: blocking attacks. Plus, users won't have to replace the router they already have (and perhaps even love). On the other hand, the setup process is more confusing than the Norton Core router's, and the Box 2 adds yet another device to consumer's already crowded homes.
One thing we did notice about the Box 2 is that it lacks some of the tools you might expect from a network device. You cannot, for example, use it to create guest networks. Other routers, even more affordable ones, include such features. That said, we believe that few users will miss them. The company has informed us that a software update will introduce these features in the future.
We have not yet tested the performance of the Box 2 as a router, and are withholding a final score until we do. We will update this review with that information once that testing is complete.
UnBoxed Security On the Network
One of the major concerns that devices like the Box 2 aim to address is protecting Internet of Things gadgets that can't run security software on their own. You cannot, for example, install antivirus on your fridge. But it's entirely possible that hackers or automated malware could discover your smart fridge and turn it into a spam server, or worse. No matter how smart the fridge, it's just another vulnerable computer that happens to have food inside.
To this end, the Box 2 includes brute force protection that will block multiple attempts to access devices on the network from the outside. It's a straightforward approach for a straightforward attack.
The biggest challenge for security companies is protecting against attacks that have never been seen before. The Box 2 includes a machine-learning powered anomaly detection engine to tackle this problem. Over the course of several weeks, the device learns what normal activity on your network looks like. Once it has learned your habits, the Box 2 blocks any activity that obviously deviates from that norm, sending you an alert when it does so. We didn't experience anything like this in our testing.
Bitdefender also says that the Box 2 is able to detect and prevent vulnerability exploits on your network. It can do this in part because it scans your network looking for open or misconfigured ports, as well as other potential issues that could be exploited by an attacker on the outside, trying to find a way into your network. Within seconds of adding the Box 2 our network, it identified an issue with our router.
Furthermore, the Box 2 scours your unencrypted internet traffic for personal information like credit card numbers, location data, and passwords. If it detects such information being relayed without the appropriate protection, it blocks the transmission and sends you an alert. This is a clever approach; Bitdefender knows the data encryption practices that developers should be using, and it warns you when these are ignored.
It's the Software, Stupid
Along with the Box 2, you get a free year subscription to Bitdefender Total Security. As its name implies, this security suite can be installed on most computers and mobile devices. Box 2 customers get an unlimited number of device licenses, so you can install Total Security on as many devices as you like. After the first year, you'll have to pay $99 to continue receiving protection.
Our intrepid antivirus reviewer Neil Rubenking thinks very highly of Bitdefender Total Security ($49.99 for 5-Devices on 1-Year Plan at Bitdefender) —so much so that he awarded it 4.5 out of 5 stars and a coveted Editors' Choice Award. In hands-on tests Bitdefender earned 91 points out of a possible 100, slightly behind competitor Norton. However, Rubenking notes that Bitdefender has the highest recorded phishing protection score among the latest crop of security software.
On its own, Total Security costs $79.99 a year for three devices. An unlimited number of Total Security licenses costs $119.99. With that in mind, the $99 per year price tag for the Box 2 (in years after the first) seems downright reasonable.
As mentioned earlier, the Central app coordinates all the information coming from the Box 2 about network threats, along with additional information from your devices running Bitdefender Total Security. From here, you can activate malware scans remotely, and even take action on some issues, no matter where you are. Bitdefender intends the Central app to be a central command for all your security issues, and the Box 2 as the bridge beyond the devices that cannot run Bitdefender software.
As we said, no other company offers this kind of integrated approach, and on paper it should be a major point in Bitdefender's favor. But again, Bitdefender's smart concept is hampered by problematic execution. The Central app is frequently confusing precisely because it's doing a little bit of everything. It doesn't help that the web version of the Central app is slightly different than the one on our iPad. We couldn't find a dedicated section to manage device users as there is in the Central app. Instead, you have to dive into sub-menus.
Although competitors' apps aren't as comprehensive, they are more focused and easier to understand. Bitdefender's doesn't always make it clear where to find particular information, or take certain tasks. For example: A pause button appears above each device on our Box network, except for the one we assigned to an imaginary child. To pause that device, you have to go over to the User tab and pause the user, not the device. That's confusing.
In its core role as a network protector, the Central app does an excellent job keeping you informed of what's happening on your network. During our phishing testing, the app shot up an alert every time it blocked a site, for example. That's great, because it keeps users involved in what's happening in their home.
But the app isn't always able to dispense actionable information. As mentioned, our router was flagged by the Central app as having a security vulnerability shortly after we powered on the Box 2. It took only a few taps to discover the problem: the router was configured to accept plain-text passwords. Unfortunately, the Box didn't offer a solution. We're concerned that unsolved problems like this will sit on the Central dashboard, and customers will simply learn to ignore them, like the enigmatic warning lights on a car dashboard. We'd like to see Bitdefender include the option to suppress some warnings, or provide more comprehensive solutions to detected problems.
Hands On With Phishing and Malware Protection
Phishing sites are insidious because they masquerade as fake sites in order to trick you into voluntarily handing over your login information. These sites don't last long, but new ones pop up all the time. While most browsers offer some built-in phishing protection, the Bitdefender Box should step in and block threats before you even see them.
In our tests, we visited ten fresh phishing sites as submitted to Phishtank.com. We found that the Box 2 blocked all but two of the dangerous sites, for an 80 percent success rate. That's made all the more impressive when we revisited those sites without protection. The protection built into the browser we used only blocked four of the sites, letting 60 percent of the threats through. For comparison, the Norton Core stopped a shocking zero out of 10 phishing pages.
We don't normally use live malware in our testing, out of a healthy sense of caution. Instead, we use a series of tests from the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization. These tests use benign files that antivirus companies have agreed to detect as malicious in order to safely determine that the software is functioning correctly. However, the Box 2 only detected one of these tests—although the files were immediately detected by the local Bitdefender antivirus software.
When we ran these same tests with the Norton Core, it blocked every single one.
A representative for Bitdefender explained that this is normal behavior because the URLs and traffic from the AMTSO site are not inherently dangerous. After some discussion, we decided to use live, malicious urls as supplied by the security company MRG-Effitas. Unlike the phishing tests, these sites had malicious payloads and would have caused damage to our system. As we did in the the phishing test, we disabled the automatic browser protection in order to test just the Box 2's performance. Thankfully, we found that the Box 2 blocked each of the 11 malicious URLs we visited. A follow-up scan from Malwarebytes confirmed that there was nothing untoward on the machine. Box 2 had blocked them all.
Kid's Box
With the Box 2 parents can create accounts for each member of the household and assign devices to each account. Once assigned, parents can limit the range of hours and days of the week that devices can be used. A pause button for each user account lets parents easily block internet access to all of a child's devices. A parent could even enforce a distraction free dinner by using the Box 2 and Central app to disable internet access to Wi-Fi access points.
If parents want additional control over children's devices, they have to install Bitdefender's Parental Advisor app. Once that has been installed on the child's phone, parents can use the Central app to check up on their child's online activity, set additional limits that can be enforced when the child is away from the Box 2 network, track their child's location, and so on. It's an impressive spread of tools, but we are surprised that more parental control features are not integrated with the Box 2.
We didn't install Bitdefender's Advisor app in our testing. However, we did find that the Box 2 did enforce the screen time limits we set, as well as pausing and unpausing connections. Note that some devices will automatically fail over to cellular or other Wi-Fi networks. Additionally, we noticed that it takes a few seconds for the pause and unpause commands to be acknowledged.
Bitdefender tells us that the company plans on rolling out more tools that will enable the Box 2 to protect against cyberbullying and online predators. These tools are said to be still in development.
One Big Happy Network
Keeping a watchful eye on your network is one thing, but the Box 2 lets you be proactive, too. Using the Central app, you'll be informed of every device on your network. You'll see the name and some critical information about the device—whether it's a brand new Apple laptop or a Nest thermostat.
When we reviewed the first version of the Box, we noticed that it struggled to identify devices in a useful manner. Other consumer security hardware also has a tendency to assign confusing, lengthy names to devices on networks. Figuring out what these actually are and who they belong to can be a real chore. The Box 2 does an admirable job of identifying devices. We had no trouble picking out the iMac, iPhone, iPad, and the router that were on our network. For these, the Central app displayed their device names, with IP and MAC addresses available if those weren't clear enough. It also shows the manufacturer, and it automatically assigns an explanatory icon for each device.
Things get a little more complicated with IoT devices, however. When we added a Lifx smartbulb to our network, the Central app quickly identified it as "LIFX-A19-26CAEE" and gave it a little bulb icon. We found the icon very helpful, but the name is long and confusing. We'd much rather that IoT devices, as well as computers and mobile devices, be given understandable names. You shouldn't need a background in IT management, or intimate knowledge of the technical names for your devices, to use them.
What remains a mystery is a device Central identified as ESP_9E41FA. We have no idea what it is, and besides adding a diode icon and a vendor name, the app hasn't done much to help. The good news is that we could block it from using our network, thanks to the Box 2.
The Box 2 is up against some stiff competition—particular from the Norton Core—in the area of device management. For one thing, the Core monitors local traffic for anomalies. If the Core detected your printer communicating with your smart light bulb, it could shut down that communication. It's a unique feature, and one that addresses advanced attacks or scenarios where an infected device is introduced to your network.
The Core also has a smart way of dealing with problematic devices. Instead of just shutting off their internet connection, the Core quarantines them on a sequestered network. This way, you can install updates from the internet or take other action to solve the problem, without putting the rest of your network at risk. The Box 2 doesn't have this feature.
It's All in the Box
With two years already in the consumer hardware security market, Bitdefender now faces stiff competition—mainly from the Norton Core, which is simple to use and set up, and looks fantastic. Although the Bitdefender can't compete on looks, and does struggle against the Core's set-and-forget approach, the Box 2 is still a powerful choice. We are impressed that it blocked all the phishing pages and live malware we threw at it. The fact that it provides unlimited licenses to its excellent software, and a single interface for every device in your home, is extremely compelling, and arguable worth the price of admission on its own.
Although we have tested all of the Box's security features, we're witholding a final score until its wireless networking abilities can be evaluated. This is the same process we've used for all such devices. We will update the story with a final score in the coming weeks.
Bitdefender doubles down on guarding your network and IoT devices against attack with its second hardware offering, the Box 2. The latest version brings more power and more features, but at a higher price.
Like What You're Reading?
Sign up for Lab Report to get the latest reviews and top product advice delivered right to your inbox.
This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.
Thanks for signing up!
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
Sign up for other newsletters
