Xfinity XFi XB7 router: HP Smart app won’t see Color LaserJet Pro M283fdw

[TangentRW1]

I have been assisting someone to connect a Color LaserJet Pro M283fdw to be seen on a new Xfinity XFi wi-if network using a XB7 gateway. So far, there is only one gateway but a mesh is planned. I want the printer to be free standing on the wireless network but so far I am seeing the following:

• The printer is connected and prints reports that it is connected to the network with no problem.
• The HP Smart app on any computer (Mac or PC)  cannot see the printer at all.
• I have tried splitting the XFi bands,  separating the 5 Ghz and 2.4 Ghz into different SSIDs and registering the printer to just the 5 Ghz band, which XFi complains bitterly about, and then recombining the bands but this did not work. I am contemplating splitting the bands permanently to see if that will work; Xfi will complain bitterly if I do this.
• By doing the above while the printer was connected to an iMac by USB, I could see the printer and connect it to the household’s other Macs using the MacOS add printer approach (their was no time to try the HP Smart app approach on those Macs) but I don’t know if the printer was seen independently of the iMac or not: I suspect that it was seen only as a printer shared by the iMAc. I was also working with a Surface Pro and it could only see the printer as something shared from the iMac, however the Surface Pro can only use the generic Windows printing software; again HP Smart does not work.

So far, I am pretty certain I have been only able to get the printer to be visible, and only to MacOS and Windows 10 software, by sharing the printer from the iMac. This means that I cannot use the HP software when printing to this printer. I see two possible solutions that might work but they would be self-defeating in some respects.

• Connect the printer to the XB7 gateway using a Cat-5 network cable, which would entail disconnecting the present USB connection to the iMac, which defeats having the printer sitting independently on the network.
• Permanently split the network into two separate SSIDs, which defeats one of the main points of having the Xfi in the first place.

While I welcome any comments on the above two semi-solutions, is there any way to get the print to be visible to another computer just using the HP Smart or the HP Easy Start apps?