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Assistant · beta

Ask your NAS, in plain words

"Is anything about my storage worth worrying about?" is a question that otherwise means opening four screens. The assistant reads what your NAS reported and answers it - with a model running on your phone, offline, that never sends anything anywhere.

The assistant, ready with suggested questions
Asking

Type it or say it

The Assistant tab has two sub-views: Ask, and How it works. Ask opens with four suggestions, which are there to show the shape of a good question rather than to limit you.

The model is loaded when you open the screen, not when you send the first question, so the first answer is not the slowest one.
Scope

There is no list of topics

This is the part that is easy to miss. The assistant is not a set of canned answers about storage and backups - it is pointed at whatever your NAS actually publishes.

  • Your NAS publishes everything it can report - over a thousand entries on a typical one - and the assistant searches that catalogue and reads whatever your question is about.
  • Install a package and it can answer about that too, straight away, with no app update. Nothing about the catalogue is written into the app; it is discovered from your device.
  • It gets quicker as you use it. How to read each part of DSM is worked out once and remembered, so later questions about the same thing are faster.
  • "How is my NAS doing?" answers with the health verdict - the same Healthy, Warning or Critical reading the home screen shows, with the reasons behind it, not a raw temperature or a single reading pulled out of context.
Good questions look like questions. "How is my NAS doing?", "Are my backups healthy?", "What is using the most space?", "What can you see about this NAS?" - the last one is worth asking once, because the answer tells you what it can reach on your NAS.
The assistant answering How is my NAS doing with the health verdict
Privacy

Nothing leaves the phone

The model belongs to the device. Your question, your NAS's data and the answer are all handled on the phone, and it works with the network switched off.

  • There is no cloud tier to fall back to. Not "we choose not to use one" - the app's build fails if a cloud host, a cloud SDK or an API key appears anywhere in the assistant. The promise is kept by the build, not by anybody remembering.
  • Because nothing is transmitted, there is no copy to store, share, or train anything on.
  • It is free and needs no account, because the model is already on your device.
How it works, explaining that the model is on the device and no data leaves it
Boundaries

It only ever reads

The assistant cannot start, stop, delete or restart anything. Not because it has been asked nicely not to - because it is not given those tools in the first place.

That matters more than it sounds. A model that is instructed not to do something can be talked into doing it. A model that has no way to do it cannot. If you want to restart a container, the Docker screen is three taps away and it will ask you to confirm.

Honesty

It can be wrong, and the screen says so

This is a small model running on a phone, not a large one in a data centre. It can misread a number or sound more certain than it should. The app says this on the screen rather than in a footnote.

When it cannot answer right now, it says why

Not a generic error. One of three named reasons, and roughly how long to wait.

ReasonWhat it means
Usage limitThis app has used its share of the on-device model for now. The device shares one model between every app that uses it; it answers again once your share renews, typically within a minute or few.
BusyThe on-device model is mid-answer for another request right now. Try again in a moment.
In the backgroundThe on-device model only answers while Syno Manager is open on screen. Bring the app back to the front and ask again.
Nothing is lost when any of these happen. Your question stays in the conversation; ask it again once the reason clears.
Getting better

It learns from your ratings, on this device

A thumbs up or down sits under every answer. Rate one and similar questions start from where that answer was read - the assistant gets better at reading your NAS the more you use it, without anything leaving the phone.

  • Good answer or Not a good answer - the two thumbs under an answer, tapped once.
  • Kept per NAS. Ratings are stored against the NAS that answered, on this device, so switching to a different NAS starts fresh for that one.
  • Never sent anywhere. Ratings are as local as the model itself - no account, no sync, no upload.
An assistant answer with the thumbs-up rating selected
The What it has learned here card showing one rated answer and Forget ratings for this NAS

What it has learned here, on the How it works tab, counts how many answers on the current NAS were rated good and reads them back in plain words.

  • No answer on this NAS has been rated good yet is what it says before your first rating - not a zero, because a zero would read as a measurement rather than an absence.
  • Forget ratings for this NAS deletes every rating kept for the current NAS on this device, in one tap.
Availability

Which devices have it

PlatformModelRequirement
AndroidGemini NanoA device with AICore and a Gemini Nano model available to it.
iOS and macOSApple IntelligenceA device where Apple Intelligence is supported and enabled.
Anything else-The tab is not shown at all.
A device without a usable model does not show the feature. Not greyed out, not a teaser - absent. A control that cannot work is worse than no control, so the tab simply is not there.

The How it works sub-view tells you which state your own device is in, and what it found.

Common questions

Assistant FAQ

Where does the assistant run?
On your phone. Gemini Nano through AICore on Android, Apple Intelligence on iOS and macOS. There is no cloud tier to fall back to - the app's build fails if a cloud host, a cloud SDK or an API key appears anywhere in the assistant.
Does my NAS data get sent anywhere?
No. Your question, your NAS's data and the answer never leave the device, and it works with the network switched off. Because nothing is transmitted, there is no copy to store, share or train on.
What can I ask it?
There is no fixed list. Your NAS publishes everything it can report - over a thousand entries on a typical one - and the assistant searches that. Install a package and it can answer about that too, with no app update.
Can it change anything on my NAS?
No. It only ever reads. It cannot start, stop, delete or restart anything - because it is not given those tools.
Does it cost anything?
No. It uses the model already built into your device, so there is nothing to pay and no account to make.
Why can I not see the Assistant tab?
Because the device has no usable on-device model. Rather than showing a feature that cannot work, the app hides it entirely on hardware that cannot run it.
Does the assistant learn anything?
It learns from your ratings, on this device only. Rate an answer with the thumbs underneath it and similar questions start from where that answer was read. Ratings never leave the device, and Forget ratings for this NAS clears them.
Why does it say the model is busy or out of turns?
The on-device model is shared with every other app on your phone, and it only runs while Syno Manager is open on screen. The assistant names which of those it hit, rather than showing a generic error.

Next: Settings

Every preference the app has, and what each one changes.

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