Although we weren’t hugely impressed with the original Bitdefender Box when it debuted in 2015, this new version looks very different from its predecessor. It’s much bigger, with a large vertical footprint that contrasts heavily with the first Box’s design. The new Box 2 is said to be much more secure, too, helping to shore up the defenses of your internet of things devices and your home network itself.
Inside the hefty shell, the Box 2 incorporates a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processor running at 1.2GHz, with 1GB of DDR3 memory and 4GB of onboard storage. It supports the latest Wi-Fi standards with MU-MIMO. All of that is designed to power its protective measures. Although the Box 2 can function as a standalone router (these are our favorites), it is being marketed more as a supplementary device than an entirely self-contained networking solution.
Whatever configuration you use it in though, Bitdefender claims that the Box 2 incorporates exploit prevention, anomaly protection, and brute-force protections, all through automated active monitoring of your home network. For more manual control over what your network can access, Box 2 includes powerful parental controls, letting you manage internet time and content, as well as look for anything which could be seen as cyberbullying or online predation.
Bitdefender’s Box 2 is also said to actively protect your network by continually scanning for vulnerabilities. If a new hardware or software installation could provide a new attack vector for hackers, it will let you know. This goes for devices on any platform, whether they’re Windows machines, iOS or Android mobile devices, or running MacOS.
Some of those protections even extend to when you aren’t in the home. The Box 2’s app will continue to monitor your devices and connections wherever you are. That goes both ways, with parents able to look at all the same reports and access the same controls, no matter where they go.
Bitdefender has all of this available to pre-order now at the pre-launch discount price of $200. When the Box 2 starts shipping out and officially goes on sale on December 6, its price will rise to $250.
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