Home Assistant 2026.11 gives every ZHA group its own device instead of hanging it on the coordinator

ZHA groups are changing place in Home Assistant 2026.11. Until now every group entity, such as a light that controls a whole Zigbee group, was attached to the coordinator device. With a dozen groups, the coordinator page turned into a long list of lights and switches that had nothing to do with the USB stick itself. A pull request by TheJulianJES, merged by puddly at 02:37 Polish time on 28 October, gives each group its own device. It is labelled a breaking change and is set for the first 2026.11 beta.

What changes

Each ZHA group that has group entities gets a device named after the group, and its entities move from the coordinator to that device. Entity IDs and settings stay the same, so automations, scripts and dashboards that use the group entities keep working. If you gave a group entity a custom name or an area, that moves to the new device. The area only moves if all the group's entities agree on one, and the name only when the group has a single entity.

The new device's page has a "Visit" link that opens the group's page in the ZHA panel. Group devices don't offer ZHA device actions or triggers, and their diagnostics show the group information. The ZHA WebSocket API now lists the group's entities among its members, a field that was always empty before.

The device exists only while the group has group entities. ZHA creates those once a group has at least two members, so if you drop it below two or delete the group, its device goes too. If the group grows back, Home Assistant restores the device and entities with their previous area, name, labels and disabled state.

Who has to change something

Two setups need a look after the update:

• Automations or scripts that target the coordinator device to switch groups. Point them at the group entities or the new group devices instead. The coordinator's device page no longer lists group entities either.
• Group entities that relied on the coordinator's area. If your group lights showed up in a room only because the coordinator sat there, assign an area to the new group devices or to the entities.

A side effect with reused group IDs

A new group that gets the ID of a deleted one also gets the deleted group's device and entities back, with the old names and settings. The pull request says this already happens with entities on the development branch. It should become rare once ZHA starts picking random unused group IDs, a change in the ZHA library that we covered on 23 October.