During the last Prime days in July, I picked up an Echo Show 8 3rd Gen for $82 to replace my Gen 1. Next Prime days are Oct 8-9.
It’s my second TBR in the house including my Family Hub fridge hub.
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How do you find it? I’d heard reports that the smaller echo shows were sluggish/laggy?
As least as good or better than my Gen 1.
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I start thinking that the devices without neutral are not reliable at all, I have about 10 switched at home where 2 are without neutral, and only these 2 are going offline often on my homekit, and I have to wait 10 minutes before they come up, otherwise I have to open SmartLife and it goes from offline to online in a few seconds.
This is so annoying, I believe I will go to run 2 neutral in some way as I have enough of this.
There are plenty of smart dimmer switches that don’t use neutrals which are very reliable, but it depends on the quality of the engineering.
For example, in the US, Lutron devices are among the most reliable there are. The company holds many patents, and in fact developed the first analog dimmer.
But they are more expensive than most other brands. Still popular with those who put a high priority on reliability.
On the other hand, there are a bunch of Smart dimmers designed primarily to be cheap, and they cut corners everywhere in both the design and the manufacturing to keep the costs down. Reliability can be a problem with those, even when they are used without the smart features.
Since you mentioned SmartLife, that’s a platform used by many different budget brands. Most of them are a minimum quality, some don’t even really make the minimum, so it’s not surprising if reliability is a problem.
Speaking as an engineer, my first question would be whether the devices have standard third-party safety certifications, such as from UL, ETL, or TUV. The ones that have better safety certifications will also typically have better reliability.
Anyway, my point is that switching from a cheap budget no neutral device to a cheap budget Neutral required device Might not improve the reliability.
But switching from a cheap budget no neutral device to a better engineered, better made, but more expensive no neutral device will probably improve the reliability.
So it all comes down to the details. Obviously, it’s your choice, but it’s just something to be aware of. 
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Agreed, it’s not true to say that no neutral switches are inherently flawed or unreliable.
I’ve had a candeo no neutral zigbee dimmer and it’s been one of the most reliable devices I’ve had.
It’s never gone offline or become sluggish or unresponsive since I got it.
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