Let me preface this by saying I have a decent amount of experience with smart home products and don't mind fiddling a bit, as long as I don't have to constantly re-fiddle. However, I have zero experience with the three brands mentioned in the title. I've searched around quite a bit but am having a hard time getting decent answers.

I have a large backyard where I'd like to run permanent string lights. I estimate I'll need 500ft / 150m of lights, which I understand will require multiple control units with any of these three products. Not ideal, but oh well. I'll be hanging them from guylines and intend on keeping them up year-round (hopefully for many years to come).

Things I know:

• Govee string lights v2 seem to be pretty new and there aren't many reviews of them, but Govee also seems to be the oldest player in the market. They also seem to be the cheapest, but I am willing to pay more for higher quality.

• Nanoleaf has cool crystal-looking bulbs and reviews are almost always positive

• LIFX has neat lanterns with multiple colors possible in each bulb, and supposedly amazing color saturation. Not sure if I care about the multi-color thing that much but the bulbs do look cool.

Other considerations:

• I live in northern Illinois. It gets up to 100F/38C in the summer and sometimes down to -20F/-29C in the winter. It's also quite windy.

• In the future, I may want to run permanent lights on the front of the house for holidays, and strip lights under some steps/around the patio. I would prefer to use the same brand for those things just to keep things simple.

• I'd like the ability to set all the lights to a similar theme for different occasions.

Thanks for any input!

I live in Kentucky so am looking for sturdy outdoor lights I can put in my back yard all year. I’ve tried several and so far they don’t even last a full year without problems or dying out. I don’t keep them on all the time, maybe a few evenings a week.

They are not in a covered area.