We had a power outtage a few days ago. One of my GE paddle switches is now unresponsive. LED just blinks constantly. It won't exclude, it won't turn on lights either physically or electronically. I tried the air gap and breaker. Nothing gets this going. I'm assuming it got fried.
That said, I'll just replace the switch. When I was using SmartThings, I'd just force remove the device. I just wanted to check if that would cause me any problems with Hubitat. It seems I might not have any other options.
I believe the only option is to force remove. It's dead. I would add the new device first and then use the swap device option in settings for an easy replacement before force removing it.
The only thing I'd add is to check Settings > Z-Wave Details for the "old" node if it's still there, which a "Force Remove" (i.e., removing the Hubitat device without doing a Z-Wave Exclusion, indeed the only option for that portion if you cannot) will result in. It's good to avoid those in this table.
You'll only have clues as to what it was at this point with the Hubitat device being gone, unless you happen to remember the old node ID or DNI, but they're usually pretty good clues -- like it being (hopefully) your only node in this table without something in the "Device" column, where you should see the Hubitat device. The listed device classes should also be the same if it's the exact same device, e.g., POWER_SWITCH_BINARY, or perhaps something similar if they are differeent generations.
Keep in mind that the force remove on SmartThings would have also caused this same situation (although you cannot see them anywhere). But they are using the older 500 series chip which does not seem to have issues with these dead nodes like the 700 and 800 series do.
Possibly when you did the removal it got removed along with it. If the device was going haywire maybe it shot out some exclusion mode packets during the removal.
