ZyXEL WAP3205 Review

Ratings

Category: Personal Computers
Brand: ZyXEL
Model: WAP3205
Availability: FREE SHIPPING (USA)
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ZyXEL WAP3205 Customer reviews

ZyXEL WAP3205 Review by Andrew Kappes (Thousand Oaks, CA USA)

My wireless router is in one room, and I needed internet in my living room for my XBOX. I didn't really want to spend $80 on a wireless adapter specific to the XBOX, so I looked around for what turned out to be a "bridge." I chose this one on for two reasons:
1. Cheap - $31 after $10 rebate
2. Functional - Unlike most, this has 2 LAN out ports, so I could not only hook up my XBOX, but also have an extra to connect to my DVR when I want to order PPV, or hook up to my Blu-Ray or TV for firmware updates.

My experience with connection wireless networks is that it is usually a bigger pain than it should be, and this fell right into that category. I don't blame this bridge itself, just wireless network creation in general. I read the previous posts with the warning of setting a static IP. The manual also tells you to do this, just not how. After some googling around, I found out how:

For Vista:
Click on the "Start" sphere
Click "Network"
Click "Network and Sharing Center" at the top
Click "Manage Network Connections" in the left menu bar
Right click on "Local Area Connection" and go to properties
Double Click "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)" (Or right click, "Properties")
Select "Use the following IP Address" and put in an IP greater than 192.168.1.2 (I did 192.168.1.8)
Subnet Mask will auto-populate to 255.255.255.0
That's all you need, then "OK" your way out.

Opened internet explorer, typed "http://192.168.1.2"...nothing. Turns out you have to give it a few minutes. It finally worked. Got in, follow the User Guide to set it to "Client Mode," found my network, and added it. I didn't know the security my new Verizon Wireless provided router was (turns out its the basic 64bit WEP if you have it), so that added to my confusion.

It didn't work right away. I don't know why, but I spun in circles for an hour with different security settings, different cables, etc. In the end, I went back to my original setup, and it worked. Not sure why, but I'd suggest to just give it time.

I didn't have to do anything special to the XBOX and it connected to Xbox Live without any issues.

I hope this helps. In the end, great product for the money (so far). The issues in connecting it are consistent with previous experience in connecting any wireless components. This item and documentation was not any worse than others in my opinion.

ZyXEL WAP3205 Review by Hou H. Chen (USA)

I think most of you have followed J. Ferguson "jimsrod"'s review setting up the wireless bridge method. However, I just want to add more info in case anyone of you encountered the problem I had.

My old router: Netgear WNR834M Firmware Version 1.1.15NA

Problem encounter:
I followed all the steps from "jimsrod", yet I still could not connect to internet, what went wrong?

Solution:
If you have WPA key, be sure to watch out. ZyXEL WAP3205 will have hard time to communicate if the router set a security key with "WPA-PSK [TKIP] + WPA2-PSK [AES]".
Please set the router to more simple security key with either only TKIP style or AES style, do not set it as a combination. It won't work. (Took me 4 hours to figure out)

When you setup the profile, in order to make sure it's working, please go to Profile tabs ( or look into your User's Guide Pg. 57), there are 2 icons you should know. If your key is simple and easy to access, it will have a green background with a check, and if it's too complicated, a red background with a check will shown.

Hope this help some of you out.
Have fun~

ZyXEL WAP3205 Review by BC (Boston, USA)

I needed a temporary wireless internet bridge to connect 3 desktop computers wirelessly while an office space was being renovated. I initially tried a Netgear WG602 Wireless-G Access Point and while it had a Client Mode that seemed like it would function as a wireless bridge, the documentation for it was very poor and after some fussing it turned out that it could only work with one computer at a time so I returned it. Some Googling found the ZyXel, and while I was skeptical of a brand name I never heard of before, and that it was was over $15 cheaper than the Netgear despite also being Wireless-N as opposed to the Netgear being only Wireless-G, I'll be darned if it turned out to be a much most sophisticated device than the Netgear or even the last Linksys units I had fussed with, despite being a very small and light device to boot.

Documentation for these types of devices is usually pretty awful as a matter of course for whatever reason, and I actually found the onboard web setup to be much slicker and more straightforward than what the Netgear had. As noted in the prior review by J. Fergunson, though, the place where you need to go to switch to Client Mode is not at all obvious -- it's under "Maintenance" and then "Sys OP."

But it turned out that unlike the Client Mode in the the Netgear, the Client Mode in the ZyXel supports full wireless bridging between that and any typical wireless router. While the ZyXel comes with 2 Lan ports to hook up 2 computers, I just connected one of them to a spare 5 port hub, and then hooked up the three PC's through that. No problem.

So as a piece of tech, it's actually pretty impressive for the money. It's not meant for non-techies, but you can find some basic how-to's like that in the J. Fergunson review here and there on the Internet.

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