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Supported equipment

Zyxel Nebula

Nebula-managed access points and security gateways, configured in the Nebula Control Center.

What you get

What this equipment can do

Three things decide what a venue actually gets. The first two are the same everywhere in this list. The third is where equipment differs, and it is the reason each page says so plainly.

Your own sign-in page

Your logo, your colours, your welcome message, in the guest's own language — and every way in you have switched on, from room number and surname to a tap on Google.

Plans that are enforced

Speed, time limit and how many devices each guest may bring, applied by the equipment itself rather than being a promise on a page.

Checkout does not cut a session short

At checkout we stop the guest signing in again, and the session they already hold runs to its time limit. Set sessions in hours rather than days and this rarely matters; a property that needs an immediate cut-off needs different equipment.

How the equipment talks to us: This equipment cannot encrypt those questions on its own, so we set up a private link between the site and us and they travel inside it. It dials out; nothing needs opening up on your broadband.

Sold as small-venue equipment, supported here in full. Some guest Wi-Fi platforms run only on enterprise access points and turn this make away. Here it gets the same sign-in page and the same enforced plans as everything else on the list, the room-and-surname login for a hotel that runs it, though checkout does not cut a session short on this make: the session runs to its time limit.

Before your installer starts

What has to be true first

None of this is work we do for you — it is the state the equipment needs to be in before the short part begins. A step that fails for something on this list is a wasted visit, which is why it is here rather than buried in a manual.

Not sure whether your site meets it? Send us a photo of the equipment and we will tell you.

Checklist

  • The site's equipment online in Nebula. Anything showing as offline takes no configuration, and the site will look correctly set while nothing has applied.
  • The site licensed on Nebula's Professional Pack tier. Usage recording for the sign-in page is a Professional Pack feature; on a lower tier the setting cannot be turned on at all, and if the licence is ever allowed to lapse, recording stops without any warning on screen.
  • Knowing whether the sign-in page sits on the access points or on a Nebula security gateway. Both work and the settings live in different places.
  • The private link up and passing traffic.
Worth knowing

The things that catch people out

Every make has its own quirks. These are the ones that matter on Zyxel Nebula — not because they are problems, but because knowing them in advance turns a site visit into a short one.

The licence keeps mattering after the installer has gone. Recording who was on the Wi-Fi is a Professional Pack feature. If the licence is allowed to lapse the setting greys itself out silently — no warning, no email, nothing on the screen — and recording stops. The first sign is that your console has no sessions for that site. Put the renewal in the diary alongside the broadband bill.
Choosing the sign-in method takes the site offline until you finish. The moment Nebula is told to use our sign-in, it switches on its own list of what a guest may reach beforehand, and that list starts empty. Until it is filled in, guests can reach nothing at all — including the sign-in page itself. It is not a fault, it is an unfinished step, and it is the reason this is not a change to start at eight on a Friday evening.
Guests land on your welcome page, not where they were heading. Most equipment tells us where the guest was originally trying to go, so we can send them back there once they are on. Nebula does not pass it, so after signing in a guest arrives at the property's welcome page instead of at whatever they tapped. That is Nebula rather than a fault — and on a property that wants its welcome page seen, it is arguably the better behaviour.
The setup

How it goes on the day

Roughly half an hour on a straightforward site, most of it waiting for equipment to restart. Your console writes out every value for your property in advance — there is nothing to work out and nothing to invent.

1

Add the equipment in your console

You register the router, controller or access point in your Resort Manager Hotspot console. It generates everything the following steps need — the address of your sign-in page, the credentials, the settings — already filled in with your property's own values. Nobody copies a setting out of a manual and nobody types a password twice.

2

Let guests reach the sign-in page

A guest who has not signed in yet has no internet, so the equipment is given a short list of addresses that stay open regardless — the sign-in page among them. Your console writes that list out in the exact form this equipment expects.

3

Bring up the private link

This equipment has no encryption of its own for these questions, so a private link is brought up between the site and us and they travel inside it. It dials out from the site, so again nothing has to be opened up on your broadband.

4

Point the guest network at your sign-in page

The guest Wi-Fi is set to open, with your branded page in place of the equipment's own. Usage recording is switched on at the same time — that is both your reporting and, in the countries that require it, the connection log you are obliged to keep.

5

Prove it with a real phone

Join the network on a phone, sign in, and watch the session appear in your console with the right plan against it. That is the point at which anything is actually proved.

Other equipment

Comparing makes?

Most sites come down to a choice between two or three of these. The pages below cover the ones closest to Zyxel Nebula.

Connects the same way

Equipment that reaches us by the same route, so the same things have to be true at the property: Netgear WAC (standalone) · Nomadix EG gateway · OpenWrt with CoovaChilli · Peplink and Pepwave

All 40 supported makes →

Have this equipment already?

Then there is nothing to buy. Tell us what you have and we will confirm the details for your site — or set the whole thing up for you, which is a service we offer.