Hi.
I’m looking to install Fibaro Dimmer 2 and control it through Home Assistant. I have HassIO running on a Raspberry Pi 3B+.
I tried finding some info on it, sorry if I missed it completely. Do I need some hub or other hardware to control the Fibaro Dimmer 2 in Home Assistant? If so, any pointers for the cheapest and/or easiest option?
You need a z wave interface, there are a few available.
Try searching the forum for “z wave hub”
I use an aeotec z wave stick (Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5, Z-Wave Plus USB, AEOEZW090-C) which plugs in via USB, but you can also get a pcb model one (Razzberry z-wave hat) that sits on the pi’s header. There are issues (pros and cons) with most of them but all said and done, they do the job.
The z wave devices (non battery ones) form a mesh network (max 4 hops to any node) so they should cover most homes with a 20 to 30 metre hop range (depending on walls, interference etc.)
+1 for the Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5 USB stick. It works very well with Fibaro devices.
Look for manuals, topics and youtube videos about how to use Z-wave devices with Home Assistant because you need to pair the device with the stick which is not always a smooth ride.
I would caution you that videos do date quite quickly, but that should not be an issue in this case.
Forum posts need to be searched and (generally) use the newer version
BIG WARNING, do NOT use the button to pair, there is the z wave manager in HA, use that instead (less likely to miss some elements (I generally get about 6 to 12 entities with a z wave device, the fib dim 2 gives the full 12) some you don’t need/use others are essential).
NEXT BIG WARNING. - DO NOT USE SECURE MODE if you can possibly get away with it.
(a secure node HAS to communicate securely (though they pass on normal messages too) a secure instruction takes 4 message blocks (as opposed to 1 for normal) this slows down your network considerably. I was told I needed to include (say) fibaro dimmers securely to access ‘scene functions’ (getting extra functionality) - you don’t.