Should I stop now?

[fleskefjes]

@irescue

I have wasted a bunch of time on HA and see that most times people are bashing out yaml to fix things - not my strong point. My assumption is that HA is not ready for prime time and is more of a hackerspace thing that really cannot be relied on for applications where failure is a problem - turning on and off pumps and valves, etc.

Not at all. I suggest you start by looking through the cookbook, you’ll get pointers on how to build a robust Zigbee network there. The Home Assistant Cookbook - Index