It's like if you went to church, and the vicar said:
"You know what? I don't fancy delivering this sermon with moral guidance. Lets just sing 10 hymns in a row."
The only thing I can see really shifting it, is people saying they'll support trump to stay in with their communities, then making excuses why they stayed home on election day.
And if I'm honest, that's a hell of a hail mary pass.
z-wave may be easier than expected, as I think the devices stay linked to the hardware dongle used. (This is just from memory, mind!). But if you need to change the dongle, perhaps less fun.
imo, it will be a bit of pain to get everything inside HA, but once it's done, you'll be inside a platform that is pretty open, and commonly used, with lots of other people (hopefully) posting up solutions to problems before you encounter them!
And because it's software that will run on pretty much anything, you have the reassurance that even if something crazy happened, you could just reinstall an old version.
If it were me, I'd clear an entire weekend day, power off the old kit, and work away at getting HA controlling everything.
Because if they remaster it, they can also remaster the price.
Which is probably why they've pulled all the old versions.
And also that you communicate that you're aware what you've done, and how you're going to continue.
I did it on mine, and said "I've just come off at the wrong exit, so I'm going to just continue along here."
Examiner said it was OK, and just directed things back onto the route at the next junction.
Nice to see NC becoming involved with the board.
I don't run that much z-wave due to cost, but I'm all for improvements and tighter integration.
Especially since when I do want to spend money, ZW works very well.
Or maybe something like this:
https://www.securemeters.com/uk/product/room-thermostats/hrt4-zw-asr/
The unit with the buttons on is a simple relay, which hass can control to turn things on and off, and use a heating control with a temperature sensor.
But if you hit the button on the front, it also gives 30 minutes of on, which can be handy if the system had issues.
Or you could have a hass controlled relay, but also leave the old controller wired in on a manual switch.
So if there was a failure, you could go back to the old control by manually flipping it over.
I get timber/PIR/plasterboard from the builders merchant, and also take that plus garden waste to the tip, 10+ times per year, in a 4 seat car that weighs under 1 tonne.
Anything truly massive, they just deliver it to me.
The day I discovered that a 2.4m 6*2 would fit inside was a very good day.
As was the one I bought roof bars.
It's only Virgin Media to my knowledge who does this.
Most of the other providers are happy for you to use anything that works properly for VDSL or FTTP.
Most FTTP providers fit an ONT that puts the connection back into an RJ45 ethernet connector.
Then you connect to the provider using PPPOE. Anything past the ONT, you can do whatever you like.
For most squishy remotes, you can disable the buttons by taking the remote apart, and putting tape on the underside of the rubber button.
You can block or disrupt communications with LEO.
But you'd need the blessing of the country's government to pump out that much interference continuously.
"Diddja laak tha'?"