Anyone use a VPN router? I'm looking for one, but I haven't yet found one that will do all of these things:
- Ability to use multiple VPN services (at least 3, preferably 4).
- Automatic failover to backup VPNs if one or more of them go down.
- Load sharing among VPNs for optimal speed. Automatic, real-time detection of the speed of multiple VPN endpoints by analyzing traffic, with routing via faster connections preferred. (optional)
- An IP address range "whitelist", for intra-China traffic: if the destination IP addresses fall within the whitelist range, then the packets are routed directly to their destination, bypassing all VPNs.
You'd think it's so simple, and the market for these things should be huge. But I can't find a single one. There are some routers that will do ExpressVPN if you load a special firmware on them, but that's not good enough. ExpressVPN had a multi day outage last month, so automatic failover is a requirement. I don't want to have to tinker with the darn thing if something goes down, I just want the internet to always work properly, without intervention, the way it does at home. And I don't even trust ETOPS here - VPN failures are often correlated and have common causes. I need at least a trijet and preferably a quad-jet, to make sure I can keep flying even if multiple engines go down.
I am tired of having to use the mobile data kill switch on my Pixel in order to get it to use WiFi every time I visit China (I use a HK SIM card, which of course it detects as having internet connectivity, while most WiFi within China will be detected as "no network connection available"). At least by putting a VPN router at the place where I am staying, I make it where I don't have to use the kill switch nearly as often, every single time I enter and leave that place. And it also means I don't have to start VPN clients on every single device, which is annoying.