Set up printing on wifi.... 5G and 2.4G wireless networks

Question

Our wifi rig is the Centurylink Fiber Optic wireless box. Stock.

Our HP wireless laser only supports 2.4G wifi. So it hooks to the wifi fine.

But when my laptop is on the 5G wifi, it cannot see the printer.

I had hoped to just use wifi direct (to the printer), but that doesnt seem possible when connected to the wifi AP for inet access?

Is there an angle I am missing/a path forward?

Answer 1

The solution on this was... to forget the wifi direct printing.

I set a static IP on the printer, and now machines on 5G and 2.4G wifi simply print to the IP address, and everything works.

Here is what it looks like in Windows. You can do the same thing on Mac and Linux.

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Answer 2

There should be an option to either allow or disallow client communications across radios in the access point. To use wifi / direct, both devices would need to change to ad hoc mode. The would be able to communicate with one another only ( Like a two host network). Not all adapters have that capability.