Yeah, this was my thought (the fact that it’s just a relay), and I figured I could connect it’s output to the load to the switch pin on a relay instead. I am gonna look into this possibility, since it would allow for some sort of local control if things go down. My thought is I could set the temp on the physical therm to way below the target temp (in the heating months, above the target temp in the cooling). This way it kinda also acts as a fail safe. And if HA is down and we need to override it, we can. Might need to put more thought into this though.
Also, here is a Z-Wave relay I use for another project and it works well, just FYI Zooz ZEN51
They’re great. I already have one, and they also make a double one. They also have energy monitoring as well, which is nice. I use it for control my Christmas tree around Xmas time. I have it wired together which a foot switch thing, which is great.