Philips Hue: first hand reliability?

As per the vastly off topic Amazon Echo thread (my fault), I have 10 bulbs on 4 switches in locations with a very shallow single gang or in one instance, not even a real single gang. They can't fit automated light switches and wouldn't you know it - those are the lights always left on.
 
The reviews I had read about Philips Hue were disastrous in terms of stability of communications, both on smart things & amazon. Said that lights were always losing connection, great idea but bad execution. But, jkmonroe has a 0% failure rate and great success.
 
Does anyone here have first hand knowledge of these, either in terms of MTBF or erratic network connections? I had a 40% failure rate for Intermatic switches within 6 months, 90% for CFLs within 12 months across 3 brands, so the wife is pretty skittish about tinkering with new automated lighting. (Leviton ViziaRF+ has been awesome though. except for the stupid VRUSB)

We have 3. They've been installed for about a year. I have another queued for skylight installation.
 
Between them they get daily ( ok, nightly ) use.
 
One became 'lost' and needed re-registration w/in the Android Hue app. ( I find this app to be rather dorky, YMMV, and that's not your question.) Was unable to delete the 'lost' reference w/in the app.
 
All are on outlets outside of our Vantage system's influence. New wiring throughout.
 
Just received a Lifx as a Thank you for coming to our Conference thing. Will be checking that out, but I don't have great hopes.

FYI, deleting bulbs can now be done from within the app.

any idea if losing connection was a "known problem" that has since been solved, or if its a YMMV thing?
 
My airwaves are hyper polluted already given that in my hood houses are 15-20' apart (lots are 40'x100', the small end facing the street). We have overhead power lines, zWave, microwave ovens, cordless phones, 12 different WiFi networks, yada yada. 

Well, Zigbee is 802.15.4 and operates in the 2.4 band.  I live in a townhouse now, and came from a dense apartment complex in a dense neighborhood, and personally haven't had issues.  In my system, the Hue branded bulbs have never lost connection, but I have lost connection to a Link which required a reboot of the bridge.  To clarify - a reboot (remove power, reapply power), not a reset.  I have reset the bridge, but I did that after Dean got Tap support so I could get going from a 'fresh start'.
 
Zigbee is a mesh similar to Z-Wave, so keep that in mind.

jkmonroe said:

Zigbee is a mesh similar to Z-Wave, so keep that in mind.

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ugh. any idea if the bulbs themselves can retransmit if there's a long distance to the bridge?  One of the bulbs is the backyard, which is only 30 feet from where i'd put the bridge but two plaster/lathe walls and i'm sure the ancient paint has lead in it. With zWave reliability jumped when I crossed the 15 device mark.

Why don't you try an in-line module for those fixtures? re-purpose one of the deep gang boxes for a keypad and you can control them from your current z-wave setup.

Well, I did some research and found out CQC can trap Hue Tap button presses. And, those don't require power, they're kinetic energy. That means I can put them anywhere, including my wife's nightstand.  I also found out Hue Lux is an $80 starter kit but only white.  That means for a dirt-cheap price I can get an "even-wife-and-inlaws-can-use" 4 button CQC controller to turn lights off, arm security, turn down heat. I can mount one next to the front door, I might even put labels on the buttons with "dog-home-alone", "house empty" so a single button press runs around to do all this.
 
Given that I have a cheap bridge and 2 white-only lux lights, I figured i'd toss in a few GE Links white-only to see how the lighting control is. If it works i'll get more. If not, i'm not sure i'll get the inline just yet, the non-vizia failure rate was so high she would potentially ban me from removing a switch altogether which is what I think would be needed for inline.  

I have a friend who bought Hue Taps and had to return them as it would not even pair with the bridge. The reviews on Amazon are mixed as usual for an RF device, which can work great in some settings and not work at all in the others. Let us know how it'll go for you.

Funny this came up. My tap worked fine for two months and just yesterday stopped working. I haven't had a chance to troubleshoot.

yuck.  i wonder if im made of magic, or something.  none of these issues at all.
 
re: zigbee mesh, yes, the bulbs themselves are repeaters and they can go multiple (5+ hops).  zigbee is quite a bit faster than z-wave, over 20kbps at 5 hops with 50ms latency.  see here:
 
https://docs.zigbee.org/zigbee-docs/dcn/06/docs-06-4516-00-00mg-architecting-a-zigbee-1-1-wireless-mesh-network.pdf
 
that doc is a tad dated, considering zigbee 3 comes out this year, but most of the products that are out right now are 1.1 or 1.2 including Hue/Link.

IVB said:

Given that I have a cheap bridge and 2 white-only lux lights, I figured i'd toss in a few GE Links white-only to see how the lighting control is.

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Keep in mind, both Lux and Link are "yellow-only" bulbs, these bulbs come only in yellow color (2700K or so).

zenix said:

 
Keep in mind, both Lux and Link are "yellow-only" bulbs, these bulbs come only in yellow color (2700K or so).

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True but I'm not spending 60/bulb. At $20 it's about the same as swapping the intermatic switches for vizia, but I'd want to personally experience reliability before investing more. Yellow looks sufficient for us. The lux are pretty bright.

interesting. The 4 lux I bought today & installed worked for a minute. I then tapped another scene and now they're in perma-disco mode, flashing on & off. I can't seem to make them stop, I unscrewed them, waited 5m, screwed back in, back to flashing.
 
They are hooked into a zWae dimmer switch which I left on, i'll try swapping it out for an old school $2 rocker to see if that helps. Dunno why it would, though.
 
And, one of the 3 Links I bought & installed yesterday isn't working.
 
So far this is a luke-warm thing. And its making me go very cautiously before I abandon the zWave ship. 

IVB said:

So far this is a luke-warm thing. And its making me go very cautiously before I abandon the zWave ship. 

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Ha, you will be wise to abandon the zwave ship, but not for an even flakier system. You'll get what you pay for. Switching to UPB or proprietary RF may be a better way to reliability (but of course, more expensive).