Wired-up 4D Systems PCB carried an ESP32-S3-N16R8 module under the shield, but YAML board manifest was wrong (4d_systems…). Switched board: to esp32-s3-devkitc-1, added psram: octal at root level (not under esp32:), and after a ProBook reboot the chip flashed cleanly and joined home WiFi at -26 dBm. After rebuilding one component at a time, the firmware now prints Microphone: Pin: 6, Speaker: Pin: 16, PSRAM: 8192 KB — wiring matches the original plan exactly. A long series of 2026.6.4 schema changes had to be patched: bits_per_sample: 32bit (with units), media_player: i2s_audio became speaker: (with dac_type: external, no name:, buffer_duration: 100ms), micro_wake_word swapped from github://shorthand to bare - model: okay_nabu, and voice_assistant accepted noise_suppression_level: 1 and auto_gain: 0dBFSinstead of booleans.Status. Chip alive on WiFi, OTA updates working, all components loaded, audio in/out wired correctly. Open issue: speaking “Okay Nabu” produces no wake-word detection — and there’s no audio-level sensor in States — so the I2S mic path isn’t producing samples yet. Untested fixes for next session: dc_offset_correction: yes in the mic block, flipping channel: right to rule out polarity, and verifying 3.3V at INMP441 VDD with a meter. Gemini pipeline itself can be tested independently through HA’s Assist mic to confirm the AI side works.