Appreciate the fast response, so the workaround is disabling a feature that was paid for?? Before the upgrade everything worked fine, shouldn't the company look for a solution for something that is being offered as a feature?

@ArcherC8 Yes I do understand and before the upgrade it worked fine, the issue started after the update of the firmware which was offered as an improvement on the service but it wasn't my concern here is the lack of attention on the company specially if the Smart Connect is a known issue as you commented earlier then why add mark up to a feature that doesn't work?

@ArcherC8 I do understand your point and agree on the "bleeding edge" but as you stated earlier is a common issue for a lot people, it wasn't for me until I upgrade the firmware, if it's that common wouldn't it be a roadmap or plan for getting a solution? I haven't found one in the company page, do you happen to know of one and the lead time for it?

As note, the workaround did help, appreciate it, but again is disabling a feature that you paid for and as a user are expecting to work out of the box. (e.g. it's not an enthusiast router so it should work without any hassle)

@InfectedDAS 

Smart connects intent is to manage what devices connect to which band. A common issue that users have is that they want the device to go to say 5G rather than 2.4G, in your case reverse.  In situations like that you are better off leaving that feature off since someone already knows what they expect or want.

In your case since firmware does not matter regarding your issue as of now, I would recommend reaching out to our support team. Typically, if firmware is the cause, downgrading would get rid of that so if your router still acts the same, then something could have malfunctioned.