Deployment Briefing

Kitchen Topology

Integrating the Echo Show 21 into a sophisticated Homelab environment. Critical Architecture Note: The Echo Show 21 cannot operate as a left/right or center channel in an Alexa Stereo Pair. It must be grouped.

Multi-Room Grouping

To achieve immersive audio, we deploy an Alexa Multi-Room Music Group ("Kitchen Array"). The Show 21 acts as the visual dashboard and vocal fill, while discrete Echos handle spatial mapping.

Acoustic Blueprint

MAP: ACCURATE

Select Topology

Acoustic Performance Profile

Tuned assessment (0-10 scale). High-fidelity audio requires physical driver volume, inherently trading off against minimalist kitchen aesthetics.

Placement Analysis

* FireTV Protocol Constraint: Alexa Multi-Room Audio groups are strictly utilized for music streaming. During native video playback (FireTV mode), the ecosystem entirely bypasses external grouped hardware. Consequently, all external topologies collapse, rendering video audio functionally identical to the Show 21 baseline configuration.

Home Assistant YAML Abstraction

# lovelace/kitchen.yaml (Mini Media Player)
type: custom:mini-media-player
entity: media_player.kitchen_array
name: Kitchen Global
speaker_group:
  platform: alexa
  entities:
    - entity_id: media_player.echo_show_21
    - entity_id: media_player.kitchen_speakers