@Kevin_Z I have the same problem, detailed here: https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/185556

@Kevin_Z 

This is a basic router feature.  Many devices that support both get confused on using either 5g or 2.4g which limits the bandwidth you can achieve.  It's always recommended to have two separate ssids per bandwidth to set which one to use per device to prevent issues.  This makes the TP LINK Deco useless if this can't be fixed and your competitors will have the advantage over your product

@ThatCopy 

I have 3 Deco M4's and I also ran into similar problem. I use it in router mode and I have a few products that only support 2.4Ghz, like e.g. apple watch, wireless printer, etc.

The rest and most of my products support 5Ghz, which is much faster (but less coverage). Therefore I need to have both 2.4 and 5 Ghz enabled. 

The problem now is that, my iPhone for example, sometimes connects to the 2,4Ghz band. I assume it does this when I am in specific areas in my house where the coverage/strength of 2,4Ghz is better than the 5Ghz. As the 2.4 band is much slower, I would like my device to connect to the 5Ghz band, because it is a lot faster and also available on that spot (5Ghz is available in every area of my house), just not the same strength as the 2,4

For this reason, it would be great to have my iPhone connected only to the 5Ghz band. But with the lack of this feature, I cannot. Now my Deco decides to which band my iPhone connects to. I read about the workaround to enable the guest network and set it to 2.4 only, but can I then still access the wireless printer for example? Normally the guest network is limited to only access the internet and not my home network, right? In that case the workaround isn't an option for me.

Why does TP Link not add the option to give the 2.4 and 5Ghz bands a different name, as so many other competitors do?

And does anyone know of another good workaround for me?

Any help is very much appreciated. 

@Slaxxx 

"Normally the guest network is limited to only access the internet and not my home network, right?"

Can't speak for M4, but  M5 and M9 Plus have the ability for Guest Network to share same network with Main Network, see screenshot. 

@Alexandre. 
 

Thanks for the tip. I checked and unfortunately the M4 does not have this feature. This feature would help me tough, so upgrading my system would be an option. 

@IgorRJ 

My mesh consists of two Deco M9 Plus and one M5. Main node is M9 Plus. I run them in AP mode. 

M9 Plus firmware:

M5 firmware:

WiFi settings screenshot:

@Alexandre. @Slaxxx  I came across this thread because I, too, required 2.4 Ghz for my HP printer, yet all my other devices really are much faster with 5 Ghz and coverage is not an issue with placement in our house. I'm confirming that keeping Home and Guest networks non-isolated is also a feature for my new Deco X20 wifi 6 system, firmware: 1.5.1 build 20210204 rel. 50738. It also has the button that allows all the Home and Guest devices to be virtually on the same subnet. That button only appears when I put the mesh in Access Point mode. I see no difference in performance between the 2 modes and I have no need for Parental Controls, NAT or QOS for now. Main difference is that EVERYTHING is now on the 192.168.0.x subnet with only my external router the gateway at 192.168.0.1, compared to router mode which setup a different local subnet 192.168.68.x (subnet mask 255.255.255.0) with a separate gateway through my Deco Main at 192.168.68.1 to be totally separate from anything else connected to my external router. I personally like having just the one local subnet. Thanks for giving me a simple solution. I would be interested in anyone's comments why router mode is to be preferred over access point mode, from the point of view of coverage and speed.