Summary: I turned off “Smart connect” on my Netgear BE3600 router which resolved an issue in which my Wi-Fi speed would drop below 1 Mbps.
In September 2025 I purchased a Netgear BE3600 router from Best Buy (store link) for $120.
I got this router because the router/modem combo included with my Xfinity service was not working well with my BambuLab 3D printer. The printer must connect to a 2.4Ghz network, so my hypothesis was that my old router couldn’t explicitly provide a 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz separate channel, so a new router would allow my printer to explicitly connect to the 2.4Ghz network only.
I turned off “Smart Connect” in the router settings to have separate 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi channels, and my printer successfully connected to the 2.4Ghz channel.
However, after this, I had a severe issue in which devices connected to the 5Ghz channel would get very slow Wi-Fi download speeds (kilobytes per second).
I struggled with this issue for months until I contacted Netgear support. They recommended that I disable “Smart Connect” and see if the issue subsides.
Seems like it did really resolve the issue!
I realized that when the 5GHz channel gets congested, “Smart connect” allows the devices to automatically connect to the 2.4Ghz network. By turning it off, I was overloading the 5Ghz channel. Note: Make sure to reboot the router afterwards. I didn’t do this immediately, and my laptop kept disconnecting from the router intermittently until I rebooted the router.
Only drawbacks:
- 2.4Ghz is only up to 700 Mbps, while 5GHz is more than 1 Gbps. So you might be getting lower speeds on 2.4Ghz, but 700 Mbps is still plenty for most people.
- Devices like printers might require a 2.4Ghz channel, and I’m unsure if Smart Connect will force them to stay on 2.4Ghz – not sure if that’s something that can be configured in the Netgear app.
So, if you get one of these routers and your speeds are spontaneously dropping, try turning off “Smart connect” and see if that helps!