Review on ZyXEL WAP3205V2 Wireless Access Point with AP/ Universal Repeater/ Client Mode by Jordan Rini

5 stars for functionality; 1 star for the configuration. I was skeptical about this product - reviews for Revain were mixed. There were enough bad reviews to deter a purchase, but very few reviews actually included a model/version number - I realized that when I started reading reviews of other ZyXel products. It looks like Revain has lumped all ZyXel products of a similar nature together. I left questions about Revain, but no one answered the specific models I was asking about, so I called ZyXel on February 9th, 2015. streaming on an Apple TV at our gym and TiVos streams were also stuttering due to the distance to the router. The seller told me that the solution was to order the WAP3204 v2 and set it up as a repeater. He highlighted version 2 and said it could be configured to work with the same SSID as my Verizon FiOS router. I asked if the setup could be done on a Mac and he assured me it could be done. He said if I have problems with the configuration call 800-255-4101 ext5, that's their tech support. I placed my order with Revain on the 9th and the product (WAP3205 v2) arrived on the night of the 11th. I spent an hour with the guide. The next day I started tuning at 8am EST. No luck after 30 min. The office didn't open until 11:00am EST which meant I spent another 2 1/2 hours fiddling with the product and user manual before I was able to contact tech support. I am familiar with networks, routers, Mac and Windows and am not intimidated by the technology. I had a nice plug and play experience with the "ZyXEL Powerline AV 500Mbps 2 Device Wall Socket Adapter Starter Kit (PLA4215KIT)" but they only have one ethernet output connection and I needed 2-3 connections ethernet and wireless connection. Area "Extension" in the gym. Here is my experience with the ZyXel WAP3205 v2 N300 Wireless Access Point shipped on February 10, 2015 by Revain.1. A printed user manual was not included with this product.2. No user manual found on ZyXel.com (as stated in the quick start guide)3. The product came with a user manual CD, but it was not compatible with Mac OS. I found the contents of the CD by borrowing a friend's computer. There was an .exe file on the CD and I was able to copy the user manual to the disc where I opened it on my Mac OS 10.10.2. The user manual is 192 pages long and not very well laid out.4. The integrated product manager software responds very slowly and the screens freeze. In order to set up this product as a repeater, the manual states that you must start with section 5 and then go to section 11 (which begins the 5 pages of LAN profile setup). instructions) and then go to Section 4.6 (which starts 7 pages of instructions on how to configure the WAN profile). The diagrams in section 4 show that this product is connected to a computer and a router via Ethernet. However, the product could not connect to the 192.168.1.2 network in UR (repeater) mode. When I tried again in AP mode, I was able to access the product management software UI and log in. However, the screen did not move forward. It just restarted. The user manual does not explain how to force the software to continue after a successful login. You should be able to click your path to get to the configuration screen, but this screen wasn't available to me by clicking the CONTINUE button after logging in. That. There is a GO button on the screen after the login screen, but that button didn't take me to a different page - it just refreshed the same page. I spent the next 2 hours following complex manual instructions to no avail. As a last resort, I pressed the reset button. I was very disappointed to find that it didn't help at all. In fact, after that I couldn't even access 192.168.1.2 in hotspot mode like before. At 11:02 am EST I called tech support and spent 16 minutes waiting. The technician who answered was very knowledgeable. He had me disconnect the extender from my router and computer and put it in the back room where it was going to be used. He then got me to go into my computer's TCP/IP settings and set the dynamic IPv4 address to a manual address using a specific IP address that he had provided. He walked me through browser restarts (we tried both Safari and Chrome) and product resets (three times) and gave me a great 40 minute guide that resulted in the product being set up as a repeater. I've had some issues with Apple TV not connecting over Ethernet and TiVo devices not connecting over Ethernet. I tried WIFI and they connected. I then rebooted all devices and tried Ethernet again. No luck with Ethernet or WIFI. Another reboot and I was finally able to access the internet. I ended up using this product in UR mode for 2 wireless devices (Wii and iPad) and 2 Ethernet devices (TiVo and Apple TV). I checked traffic on all connections and was very happy with signal strength and connection speed. CONCLUSION: This product required a complex set of instructions to set up in Repeater (UR) mode. The 192-page manual didn't include the same setup instructions that tech support provided me with. Even after very specific instructions from tech support, it took a lot of time, reboots, resets and browser restarts (tried both Chrome and Safari more than a couple of times). The technician pointed out that this was not an unexpected behavior and very patiently asked me to restart the process when the product management software got stuck on the screen and wouldn't continue.