the smart strings have not been painless for me. for everything i discuss, i am using individual mode -- only.
i purchased 22 strings from the new batch, and then got another 20 from another forum member... they had the same appearance and i suspect that they were also coated with plastidip.
i've had to reduce the length of the strings from 128 to 85 in order to get better reliability -- none with 128 lasted with the test firmware beyond 6 hours.
i've had bad pixels, i've cut them out to resolder. there are some strings that seemed to have one renegade after another, but most can be fixed with a single repair.
i don't think i'm having water problems, but I have seen strings work for a couple days and then get a renegade pixel.
design-wise, I'm not wild about wires coming in to be soldered to a tiny board, and wires going out in the same way -- they catch on other wires, they are susceptible to pulling.
they do give off a great deal of light. they do have better directionality going for them. I was half a mile away in the neighborhood looking at the subdivision's lights -- then saw my tree in the distance. who needs a billboard with that?
i've used square pixels. they've had problems too... though I've only worked with 120 pixels and out of that sample I had 5 bad pixels... and maybe a couple that still snuck in to my rgb element.
i am hearing that some folks are having problems with CCR strips from LOR. I had one come from the factory with red not working for half the string. another person had 2 strings with failures. they are nice in many respects, but they are also harder to repair -- to the same degree as smart pixels.
so, there are problems to solve to make this more accessible to the hobbiests. I am trying to follow the products that come from Costco and others with the hope that they will discover a better consumer product with fewer issues.
steve