If be interested to hear how the hue bulbs turn out. By far the least reliable bit of my setup is the lifx bulbs. If I consider uptime as all bulbs working without network flickers is judge I get about 20% uptime of my whole lifx network-not good
i have only got one bulb up and running at the moment i just brought a HUE White starter kit (HUB and 2 Bulbs) but they are a E27 fitting and my house is mostly B22 i have got an adaptor on the way for the other bulb and will buy twin packs of B22 soon
so far the bulb seems to be working fine
how many lifx bulbs are you using
Iāve got 4 at the moment, but wonāt be buying any more. There is a chance though that its the Wi-Fi thatās to blame, so maybe Iāll try upgrading that first
worth a shot as they are expensive bulbs and im sure they wouldent sell or even compete with hue if they had reliability problems
i have also been thinking about the hue motion sensor
i love the way the hue bulb dims when you turn it off not just straight off it dims up too (not sure if they all do that lol)
Milage may vary ofcourse, but I have about ~40 LIFX lights up and running without issues. A good Wi-Fi will certainly help. My biggest issue with them is that Iām now running out of IPās. 
Yeah the LIFX bulbs can do the fade in/out. Another issue Iāve found with them and OH2 is that they respond a lot better to simple command to toggle between 0% and 100%, but often down turn on for a command changing them from 0% to say 15%.
Interesting that 40 or so can run fine though - probably hints that itās our WiFi failing. We only have 30 or so WiFi devices all up (including sensors, servers, phones/tablets, laptops, TVs etc)
Iāll throw my vote in for Xiaomi as well. I was concerned with how reliable they would be given the price, but took a chance and have not been disappointed.
I had a small issue getting them set up right off the bat. It was a widespread issue with not being discoverable even after enabling developer mode. It was cleared up after a day or two and they have been rock solid since.
I have a motion sensor that activates my under cabinet lights, door sensors, and a couple of the buttons for bedside lamps. Iāve had them about four months and I think my lowest battery is around 80%.
My biggest challenge with this hobby is doing it on a reasonable budget. So far Iāve done pretty well other than light switches.
im still in the process of sorting lighting before i add sensors im just keeping this open for when i start adding them its been added to my long todo list lol.
yes this hobby can be expensive and im also trying to do it as budget freindly a possible