Hi new to forum and have many questions

[robandchristy]

Please be kind and treat me like a noobie been around home automation since x-10 then went to insteon and eventually bought a isy 7 years ago, insteon was great, but at 70$ a switch since no one was around was a hefty price to pay not to mention failure record, today I experienced about 7 failures as if timed not to a power surge, which my computer backup power supply would inform me and with no new switches on market, wanted to switch, the isy was great for most part but when adding say a z-wave leak sensor it would put 7 entries of which I could only change the main one, on off, no temp no humidity etc, Isy has served me well but now im more into no being so expensive insteon products which are all out of stock, so as i migrate to z-wave I do have a few questions to make proper buying decisions, and I did search best hubs before I posted but no results, my first question is what is the best hub for the buck, im not paying 900$ that uses alexa, is software up to manufacture or is it controlled by z-wave, if not I need to do scenes, timers, triggers, links in simple mans terms. Is everything that is sold as z-wave compatible? Does z-wave sell their own hub and software, also need it to be android compliant with remote access, as well as send texts or emails if a certain event is triggered. Im hoping to get users opinions since every opinion on google is click bait. Iv seen 6 different items claiming their the best for z-wave. Pardon my basic questions but to replace more the 60 switches (which includes motion sensors and wall socket's) to z-wave will be a big undertaking but with good advice I can get there eventually. Thanks for any help.

[lanbrown]

Z-Wave is a technology. So they just produce the Z-Wave chipset that they sell and create the API. Other manufacturers then take this a build their product around them. In theory, any Z-Wave device should work with any Z-Wave system. You do have some devices that while Z-Wave are really designed for one hub; some of the alarm integrations using Z-Wave are a good example of this.

Home Assistant has a lot of integrations but there are many aspects of it that get ugly when under the hood. They have a couple of different Z-Wave implementations. Overall, I would say that Z-Way has the best Z-Wave integration. They do sell their Z-Wave controllers and offer Z-Way for free with their Razberry boards. Their UZB USB variant requires a license. Out of the box, you can configure Z-Way to send alerts on water being detected. They have an app that can be installed (the app is free). It is produced by Z-wave.me which also produces the Razberry boards, the UZB and Z-Way. Z-Way also has a lot of tools that can show various aspects of your Z-Wave network. This is one reason why I'm switching to Z-Way.

If I were you, I would only be looking at current generation products, which would be the 700 series line. There are still many devices that are 500 series. 700 series has been released in the last year. The 700 series have many advantages over the 500 series. If I need to buy any new Z-Wave products, they will only be the 700 series. It makes no sense to me to buy anything based on 500 series right now.

[robandchristy]

I looked into this device which was hard to find any info about and doing a google search for hub left me with very little options, the razberry seem to need the rasberry pie, which I actually own one and used once, I see smart things can do a lot less for 3x the price and no manufacture shows any software included, so at a loss where am I going wrong finding a decent hub with good software, I cant write code as much as people can fix diesel engines. So I would need a hub where common sense takes place with software, add device, turn on or off at this time. I can do more then just basics as long as its in drop down menus. eg.
at this time turn x light on
but and/or this event happens turn it off,
this is the interface im used to no actually coding
So again Ill politely ask is there a good hub to start with that has good software to write routines with and if or commands that does not require code that has a nice gui to simply get things to work, to those who have or are using a ISY this is what I know, everything about z-wave is french to me, id love to learn and transfer over to z-wave as big as it is and I know its huge I struggle to find good info about it searching.
Thank any other ideas in advance.