Review of the Zyxel NWA210BE Access Point: Wi-Fi 7 model for high density spaces
The new Wi-Fi 7 standard brings several interesting technologies designed to improve performance in high-density wireless environments, office buildings, campuses, and so on. Among the main innovations is support for the 6 GHz frequency range, which is prohibited in many countries, as well as the ability to simultaneously use the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands (or 2.4 and 6 GHz) to transmit traffic to the client, which It may be in demand in some scenarios requiring high bandwidth, such as wireless video surveillance or 8K streaming. In any case, the access point offers you 12.3 Gbps of bandwidth over the air, and it's up to you to decide how to use it.
The NWA210BE model is a mid-range Wi-Fi 7 standard model, it has 2 radio modules with formulas 2x2:2 for 2.4GHz and 4x4:4 for 5 and 6 GHz. The 5 and 6 Hz ranges are controlled by a single BandFlex radio module, so only one of them can operate at a time. The NWA210BE supports a channel width of 320 MHz, which allows you to achieve high point-to-point speeds, which may be in demand when building wireless bridges or connecting high-resolution NVR cameras.
Design features
The access point has an elongated oval body, and it looks very specific even for professional equipment. Zyxel emphasizes that this form was chosen for the sake of better noise immunity, but we'll talk about this later in the text. In general, the NWA210BE looks unusual, and somewhat resembles a decorative dish for decorating walls.
The Zyxel NWA210BE has 2 ports with a speed of 2.5 Gbps, one of which is PoE, and what is especially interesting is that a Type–C connector (15V PD VDC 2A) is used to connect external power, which is a strange and ambiguous solution, besides, the lower-end access points in this series retain the traditional power plug.
Of course, the most interesting thing about the NWA210BE is inside, and even in press releases, the company emphasizes that the ideology of "RF first by design" is used here, that is, noise immunity and literacy of the radio part are at the forefront. Zyxel access points have always been a work of art by design, but this time the maestro surpassed himself.
First, let's note that Zyxel here puts the antennas on a separate metal board, connecting them to radio modules with coaxial cables. This reduces the mutual influence of RF emitters and electronic components of the device, and additional shielding from third-party RF sources is never superfluous. Conventional metal antennas are used here, but they are nevertheless capable of forming a beam in the direction of the client. By the way, in this article we talk about the types of Smart antennas in Zyxel access points and how fixed radiators can target STAS. It is also interesting that the board has 8 antennas, 2 more than the supported number of spatial streams. These are the so-called beam direction-shifting antennas (SBA antennas), which form dozens of directional options.
On the reverse side, the motherboard is covered with a large heat distributor, a curved aluminum plate that follows the contours of the case. And although this radiator is not connected to a common "ground", it also works as a shield and protects radio frequency modules from on-air interference.
And although, of course, many manufacturers simply rivet the RF antenna onto the access point motherboard itself, and are proud of the couple of dollars they've saved, because of such small things, Zyxel points work where others can't, and shielding is far from everything.
This is the first time I have come across the fact that the access point has protection against static voltage from the port, and I have not seen this even on Hi-End devices priced above $ 1000. Usually, such protection is implemented on the ports of switches, but it may not be there if the switch is very cheap or it may not be enough if the cable is very long. Anyway, the Zyxel NWA210BE has protection installed on both RJ45 ports, so if you cascade a 2.5Gigabit link through an access point, be sure that the device following it will also be protected from static.
Looking at the location of the radio modules, it becomes clear why the NWA210BE has such a strange elongated shape. Here, a processor with memory is located in the center of the motherboard, to the left of it is a 5/6 GHz radio unit, and to the right is a 2.4 GHz radio unit. Note that both the processor and the radio unit are enclosed in their own shielded enclosure. And it turns out that the two radio modules are as far apart as possible, and most importantly, their power circuits and the digital part are also located diametrically opposite. Although, with such an excessive attitude to noise immunity, it remains unclear what prevented the manufacturer from supplying normal shielded cables to the antennas...
As you can see, from generation to generation, Zyxel access points receive more and more design refinements, and the changes are not limited to design alone. There is a lot to see and discuss here, but enough about the design, let's move on to the software part.
Web-interface
The initial setup is done via Wi-Fi, and you will find the username and password on the back of the access point case. Of all the settings, we will pay attention only to the most interesting ones.:
The access point can operate in router mode, connecting clients via NAT. There is a built-in Storm Control.
The web interface has a command-line interface (in addition to an SSH connection), a built-in file manager for managing configs, and FTP for uploading them. So mass integration at large facilities should not cause problems.
The Zyxel NWA210BE transmits a ton of information via SNMP (an example of snmpwalk output is in this file) and supports the publication of logs on 4 remote syslog servers.
For a frequency of 5 GHz, you can choose a channel width from 20 to 240 MHz, and for 6 GHz – from 80 to 320 MHz. Keep in mind that for the network to work properly, the type of authorization must be the same on all access points: you cannot install WPA3 somewhere, and WPA2 somewhere within the same SSID.
The built-in web interface here has not changed for years, so if you have already worked with Zyxel access points once, it will not be difficult to set up.
Using Nebula Control Center
NWA210BE access points can be managed either locally, via a CLI or web interface, or centrally, via the Nebula Control Center cloud service, which we wrote a lot about earlier.,
Will Zyxel Nebula survive on the sovereign internet?
How Zyxel Secureporter facilitates corporate network security monitoring
... and once again, let's not repeat ourselves, I'll just note that now an AI chat has appeared in the Nebula interface, which is the next step after a simple search through the documentation and, more importantly, it is focused specifically on Zyxel equipment and is not stupid.
To get the 6 GHz frequency working, change the country in the Wi-Fi settings, for example, to Greece, Taiwan or Poland.
I would like to mention the Smart Steering function, which allows you to transfer a client between channels if his signal is below a set level.
Testing
I was interested in two aspects – how stable seamless roaming between access points is and what speed the wireless connection shows in line of sight. I used a Mediatek MT7925 Wi-Fi controller that was not the most productive, but was limited in speed in the 6 GHz band at 2.8 Gbit/s and took measurements in three ways: in line of sight, behind a cabinet and behind a drywall partition.
In order for seamless roaming to work truly "seamlessly", it is necessary that all access points have the same type of authorization selected and, in fact, seamless roaming itself is enabled in the properties of the access point. In the case of Zyxel, the easiest way to control this is using the Nebula Control Center.
The speed of switching between access points was measured using the WiFi Moho program from Ruijie Networks installed on the Poco X6 5G phone. The switching interval ranged from 30 to 90 ms without packet loss, which means that even the most sensitive application, such as an audio or video call or conference in Google Meet, Telegram, Whatsapp, is not interrupted for a second.
During operation, the NWA210BE case heats up over 45 degrees, and this is not surprising, given the device's power consumption in the region of 27 watts.
Conclusions
The Zyxel NSA210EE differs from other "just Wi-Fi 7 access points", and these differences are embedded in the design, soldered on the motherboard, they are justified, they work, and you understand what you are paying for. This is a model for those cases when you need "confidence with a margin", but when you are not yet ready to pay for the WoW factor.
Among the disadvantages, I would note the built-in Web interface, which was clearly stuck in the last decade, in which the manufacturer even forgot about language localization, not to mention such delights as AI or at least just search.
Michael Degtyarev (aka LIKE OFF)
03/06.2025
