You are completely correct. Cox recently removed the "Split Bands" toggle from both the Cox App and the Gateway Admin Portal (192.168.0.1) for residential users. They now enforce band steering automatically, stating that they optimize everything for you behind the scenes. [1, 2, 3]

If you are struggling to connect smart home devices that require a 2.4 GHz network, here are the most effective ways to bypass this restriction:

1. Contact Cox Support to Split It Remotely

According to users on the Cox Community Forums, Cox level-2 customer support agents can still manually separate your 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands from their backend tools. [1]

Contact Cox technical support via chat or phone.
Explicitly ask the agent to "disable band steering and separate my 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks". [1, 4, 5, 6]

2. Use the "Distance Trick"

Smart devices often fail setup because your smartphone connects to the 5 GHz band, while the smart device can only see 2.4 GHz. [7]

5 GHz signals have a short physical range, while 2.4 GHz signals travel much farther.
Take your smart device and your smartphone far away from the router (e.g., your driveway, backyard, or a neighbor's porch) until your phone drops its 5 GHz connection and switches to 2.4 GHz.
Run the device setup while far away, then bring the device back to its permanent spot.

3. Use a Phone Hotspot Hack

If the distance trick does not work, you can trick your smart device using a temporary hotspot:

Turn off your Cox Panoramic modem entirely.
Turn on the cellular hotspot on a secondary phone or tablet.
Set that hotspot's network name (SSID) and password to be exactly identical to your home Cox Wi-Fi network.
Connect your main phone to this hotspot and set up your smart device.
Once the smart device is paired, turn off the hotspot and plug your Cox modem back in. The smart device will automatically transition to the Cox 2.4 GHz band.

4. Bridge to a Third-Party Router

If you want permanent, granular control over your network channels and bands, the best solution is to bypass Cox's ecosystem entirely. [2, 8]

Purchase a third-party Wi-Fi router or mesh system (e.g., TP-Link, Netgear, or Asus).
Log into the Cox Panoramic gateway page (192.168.0.1) and turn on Bridge Mode.
Plug your new router into the Cox gateway to handle all your Wi-Fi needs, allowing you to split bands whenever you want.

If you decide to call support or try one of these workarounds, let me know what specific brand of smart device you are trying to pair so I can provide exact app configuration steps.

[1] https://forums.cox.com

[2] https://www.reddit.com

[3] https://www.cox.com

[4] https://www.americantv.com

[5] https://www.cox.com

[6] https://forums.cox.com

[7] https://www.reddit.com

[8] https://forums.cox.com