I've donated my old stuff to a local arts center, some friends etc. Old ZW still works fine if the setup is simple and relatively close together.
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And then I switched from Wink to ST. Sigh.
For me... CREE bulbs.
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- I had my time with Cree. Maybe they are better now but wow did I have issues. To be fair some of the issues were ST related.
Not HE related, but years ago a local big box store had a sale on CFL bulbs. $3.00 for 6. Yep, bought 60 of them.
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Home Depot still sells "bulk" incandescent bulbs right near the LED bulbs and the labeling is not clear.. made that mistake... once.. 
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Your new addition is really coming along I see...
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Ge link bulbs (A19's and BR 30's) 
So many of them developed moisture inside.. I don't mean just a little fog, I mean you could crack them open and pour out an ounce of water....
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Those are the new combination dehumidifier/smart bulb.
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I'm glad CFL had such a short life span and was replaced by LED. They sucked! Ever read the directions on what your supposed to do in-case you break one? No Thanks!
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Confession 1: Bought a 6 pack of SmartLife WiFi sockets and wrote a bunch of IFTTT modules to integrate them into ST and then later into HE - just before IFTTT moved to a pay to play business model. I then replaced them with ZigBee plugs that work perfectly as-is with HE and strengthen my mesh as a bonus.
Confession 2: Converting my HousePanel app platform from legacy Groovy code to the new ST platform only to discover that all the smart people jumped ship and came to HE.
Confession 3: Spent 5 years perfecting my smarthome setup then took a new job and had to move and start over.
Confession 4: Bought a full sized Apple HomePod for a gagilion dollars about a week before they announced HomePod mini's for $99 and discontinued the full sized HomePod.
Confession 5: Inherited two WeMo plugs in my new house and decided to keep them instead of replacing them with something that actually works and interfaces with HE.
Confession 6: Bought a new generation 4 Ring Doorbell only to find out that this is the only version that doesn't work with the community written HE-to-Ring integration app. Going to toss it into the museum and replace it with another copy of the generation 2 version that I moved to my back door, which integrates fine and works just as good as far as I can tell.
Confession 7: Spent about a year tinkering with an ISY hub and Insteon switches, including adding support to HousePanel, which proved to be a complete waste of time. Have 6 Insteon switches, a Polisy box, and an ISY 994 hub if anybody wants to buy some 10+ year old smart home tech
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And I'm standing while I do that.
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There's the recent anguish of "Freezer-Gate" (Thread here: I deserve to be given the cold shoulder) which boils down to:
Don't move sensors around for "testing" purposes, forget you've moved them, wonder why your OH starts bitching, make the stupidest "man-comment" ever and get firmly kicked into the dog house.
Confession #2: Following rabbit holes. THIS one has to be the mother of them all.
I had a thought one day that a video doorbell would be useful. Having mobility issues I could deal with visitors remotely & know if anyone's REALLY at the door when the dogs bark their stupid heads off!
Wind the clock forward, and the bank balance down by about two grand, and here we are. Smart heating, lights, window blinds, fans, intrusion alarms, etc...
The latest rabbit hole is still the freezer temp sensors. The one in the outbuilding is out of range which means justifying the cost of some more repeaters.
Would I change my experience? Some of it perhaps but not much. After dipping my toe I did a LOT of reading up on here before taking the plunge which has paid off enormously. This place helped me SO much, and continues to do so.
PS: I may have been forgiven for "Freezer-Gate" as my OH said something that left me a bit gob-smacked. I have a couple of roller blinds & zigbee motors sitting in my "things to do" box. The comment was:
When are you going to put that automated blind in here. It would be really useful!
I truly hope it won't be a case of "be careful what you wish for" and that my redemption will be continued.
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I don't know if you're using zigbee or zwave but one of those outdoor plugs works great to span the gap to outbuildings. One less set of walls to penetrate really opens up the distance zigbee can travel. I image one on each end would make for jaw dropping range when zero obstructions are there to bother you.
That's super interesting. It should work, if you still have it around and want to use it, please ping the thread and we can see what we can do.
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i'm jewish.. don't do confessional.. except for one day a yr.. will come back and post on yom kippur.
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I was raised Catholic, but that doesn't mean I do confession either... So don't feel confined by the parameters of your religion..
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but my biggest fubar has nothing to do with home automation.. wife thought she was helping me during fall cleanup raking leaves into a pile. I had gator mulching blades on the mower and had already picked up all pine needles and was grinding up the leaves as they are ok for the yard..
ahem.. mower was hot after an hour.. ran through the leaves she raked up and they got clumped up under the mower .. lite on fire.. tried to pull them out.. no good.. mower was engulfed in flames and gave up.. after pushing it away from pile.. wife freaked out. called 911. gave me fire extinguisher.. i got the mower out..
Just finished replacing the entire wiring harness in it as the old one was all melted.. finally replaced the hour meter wire yesterday and light bulbs. All working again..
I have a pretty funny video of the whole thing from front door camera.. Fire dept. came but all was well by that time.
And off course it was fall, so i had already blown out the sprinklers, turned off the water and put the hoses away.
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Wow.... I can't imagine what you may have by yom kippur... (I did at least do the proper thing an find out it is the 4th October, at least it is for me...).
I don't expect dew on the grass is a major concern at the moment for you... If nothing else, it would be a benefit.
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