The app
Get the app. It is the half that works offline.
We are not going to tell you the app is essential for everything, because it is not. You can buy data, top up, check your balance, read your invoices and manage your whole account on the website without ever installing anything. If that is all you want, that is a perfectly reasonable way to be a customer.
There are four things the website structurally cannot do, and they are all the same kind of thing. They are the things you need at the exact moment you have no connection. A web page needs a network to load. That single fact is the entire argument for the app, and it is why the offline half of Orbislo lives there.
What the app does that a web page cannot
It holds the Passport profile and installs it in a single tap, handing the credentials straight to your phone's own eSIM installer instead of routing you through an email and a QR code. It runs Ori, our assistant, against a help index stored on the device, so a question about your settings gets an answer while you are standing in a car park with no signal. It runs the failover monitor that notices when the carrier you are on has congested and asks our network to move you. It downloads offline city packs with emergency numbers, your embassy and local taxi guidance. It shows live balance and per app data use from the operating system's own counters. It sends the notification when we switch your network. And it is where the 100 MB a month of free rescue data is spent, which has to be on the phone, because you would not be reaching for it if you could load a website.
| App | Website | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy data and top up | Yes | Yes | Both work. The website is fine for this. |
| Install the Passport in one tap | Yes | By emailed link | The app hands the profile straight to the phone's installer. |
| Ask Ori with no connection | Yes | No | The help index is stored on the phone, so it answers at 0 bars. |
| Automatic network failover | Yes | No | The on device monitor is what notices a congested carrier. |
| Offline city packs | Yes | No | Emergency numbers, embassy, transit, downloaded before you land. |
| Use the free 100 MB rescue data | Yes | No | You have no data. That is the point. It has to be on the phone. |
| Live balance and per app usage | Yes | Balance only | Per app breakdown needs the operating system's own counters. |
| Notification when we move you | Yes | Email only | You find out after the switch, not during it. |
The home screen has three states
Most travel apps show you the same dashboard whether you are on your sofa or lost at an airport at midnight. Ours does not, because those are not the same problem and they do not deserve the same screen. The app knows which of three situations you are in and shows you only what matters in that one.
State 1
At home, before the trip
Your wallet balance in gigabytes, not in dollars, because gigabytes are what you are about to spend. Under it, your next trip, read from your calendar or a forwarded flight email, with the countries it crosses and whether your current balance covers them. If it does not, one tap fixes it. Nothing on this screen is urgent, which is the whole idea, because everything urgent should have been handled here.
State 2
Landing, the first 10 minutes
The screen changes on its own when the phone attaches abroad. It shows the carrier you landed on by name, the speed measured on your actual connection rather than a marketing figure, and how long the attach took. If you have no service it does not show you a spinner, it shows you the data roaming check, because that is the answer roughly 60 percent of the time. This is the only screen that is allowed to be loud.
State 3
Abroad and connected
Today's usage against your recent daily average, and your balance expressed as days remaining at the rate you are actually burning it, which is a more useful number than a gigabyte count. One tap top up sits underneath. If we move you to a different network mid trip you get a notification here explaining which carrier, why, and what the speed was before and after.
What you are installing
iOS 15
Minimum iPhone version
Android 9
Minimum Android version
100 MB
Free rescue data every month, 145 countries
145
Destinations live today, 200 at launch
Two honest caveats. The app will install happily on a phone with no eSIM chip, and it will say so on the first screen rather than after you have paid, but if your handset has no eSIM support then no app and no software update can give it one. Check yours on the device list first. And the offline city packs are per city rather than per country, so if you are crossing five cities you download five small packs on wifi before you go, which the app will prompt you to do once it knows your trip.
Setting it up in about two minutes
- Install it. Search Orbislo on the App Store or on Google Play. It is free and there is nothing to configure before you sign in.
- Sign in or create an account. An existing account brings your wallet balance, your Miles and your Passport across immediately. A new one takes about 20 seconds.
- Install the Passport. One tap hands the profile to your phone. The step by step is on the iPhone page and the Android page, including the roaming toggle that is behind most no service reports.
- Add your trip. Connect a calendar or forward a flight email and the app works out which countries you cross and whether your balance covers them.
- Download the offline pack. Do this on wifi. It is the part that keeps working when nothing else does.
Then put your phone in your pocket. If you want to see what a country costs before you install anything, prices are on the pricing page and the carriers we put you on, with measured speeds and sample sizes, are on the coverage page. Support is staffed 24 hours a day with a target of under 60 seconds to a human reply.