One WiFi name for everything sounds like the obvious modern choice — until the smart bulb will not pair, the old printer keeps landing on the wrong band, and you cannot tell the router to stop helping. An honest grading of Smart Connect.
Your router broadcasts two networks: 2.4 GHz (slower, travels far, works with everything) and 5 GHz (faster, shorter reach). Smart Connect hides both behind one name and moves devices between bands by its own judgement. On paper: perfect. In real homes and small offices, the answer depends entirely on what mix of devices you own.
With Smart Connect on, a device sees one network and the router assigns a band — near devices get 5 GHz, distant ones get pushed to 2.4 GHz, and it may move a device mid-session as signal changes. For a house of modern phones and laptops this works quietly well, and roaming around the home stops being something anyone thinks about. The algorithm optimises for signal, not for your intentions — and it cannot be argued with per device.
Turn Smart Connect off and name the bands as a pair: Home for 2.4 GHz and Home_5G for 5 GHz, with the same password on both. Every modern device gets saved on the 5 GHz name and simply never sees the slow band; the smart bulb pairs to the plain name without drama; and when something misbehaves you can see exactly which band it chose. You spend ten seconds of thought per device, once, instead of the router spending your patience forever.
A small flat with only phones, laptops and a TV — no smart home gear, no printer older than the router, no fixed desktop — is Smart Connect's home ground, and there it is the lower-effort correct answer. The moment a single 2.4 GHz-only gadget enters the house, or one device 'must' live on a particular band, separate names stop being old-fashioned and start being the fix.
Changing this setting renames your networks, so every device must rejoin: do it once, deliberately. Keep the password identical across the change and reuse the old main name for the band most devices used — most of the house reconnects by itself and only the exceptions need hands. Announce it at home or in the office like a power cut: ten planned minutes beats a week of 'the WiFi changed again'.
See Smart Connect and the band names set on the real pages in the full setup video.
▶️ Watch Full VideoNot reliably — that per-device control is exactly what Smart Connect takes away. A few models offer band preference hints, but the steering stays automatic. If one device must be pinned to a band, that is the deciding argument for separate names.
Your phone holds the 5 GHz name until the signal truly dies, then you may notice one manual switch to the plain name in a far corner — in practice most people save both names on the phone and it roams between the two saved networks by itself. Latency and speed in the rooms you actually use stay better than a steered connection parked on the wrong band.
That is the device telling you its radio is 2.4 GHz only — common in printers, cameras and budget laptops. It is not a router fault and Smart Connect would not have helped it see 5 GHz. Give it the plain-name network and a reserved IP, and it will behave for years.