R7000 2.4 signal and wifi speeds flaky (1.0.9.34)

Final thank you to those contirbuting to my understanding.

The NG implementation of band steering, which doesn't support roaming between bands, really won't work for my home unless I disabled 5G altogether; we have some areas not covered by 5G, so every device would need to be on 2.4 to support occasional use from worst case location.

So either I invest in mesh replacement or leave smart connect off.  The latter approach has been working well on 1.0.9.28 for almost a month now without any problems and without any router reboots.

I'm going to move forward with single SSID and disabled smart connect for now.  It has been working well for my household since I bought the router, which is not surprising.  Netflix HD streaming, for example, needs some 5Mbps, which is an easy reach for us if all 5 members of my household were sharig a single band.  We occasionally host events where some 40 people are all using our wifi at the same time, but in this case none of their devices are driving high bandwidth applications, and noone has issues.

In conclusion, while my house is a candidate for mesh, the dual band r7000 is more than adequate for us provided that we levarage roaming between bands.  I plan to use separate SSIDs if or when we actually run into a bandwidth challenge.

Thanks again.