As far as I understand to efficiently manage a (large) Zigbee network it is better to send commands to groups than to collections of individual devices. What I can’t find out, however, is whether areas work functionally the same as groups or if it might be a less efficient method of control.
To give an example: if I have 20 smart lights in my living room, and I call service ‘light: turn on’ on the area ‘Living room’, is this processed as a single command (like calling service ‘light: turn on’ on the group ‘living room lights’) or not?
And since we are at it: any other reasons I should prefer groups over areas (or vice versa) in automations?
My understanding is that you should specifically use Zigbee groups… I don’t think there is going to be a significant difference between using HA groups and Areas.
Not sure if I am following your use of terms correctly, however the term ‘group’ is used both by Home Assistant and at the base level of Zigbee protocol. And they are very different in how they function. The Zigbee group would be where you are maximizing performance and function at the lowest possible level, however a bit difficult to manage. The post below might give you some insight to Zigbee groups. Good hunting.
Home Assistant’s group and area are merely collections of entities. Each entity in a group or area receives an individual command. For example, if there are six entities in a group or area, Home Assistant will send six turn_on commands (one for each entity).
In contrast, the members of a Zigbee group (not to be confused with a Home Assistant group) can receive a single command that applies to all members of the group. In other words, a Zigbee group containing six members only needs to receive a single command for all six members to be act on it.
Depending on which Zigbee integration you use, it may offer a means of creating Zigbee groups.