*Synology Moments will soon be upgraded into Synology Photos, a brand new package in DSM 7, combining Moments and Photo Station Photos
A lot of people purchase NAS devices to control and manage data. It’s ideal for those who don’t fancy having these stored and processed in 3rd-parties like Amazon or Google. Here in our Synology Moments review, we’ll look more into this solution to keep your files organised.
Unlike in the past, people nowadays take more photos than ever. But usually, these end up getting stacked in your smartphone, and you forget about them in the end.
But one of the real issues here is the process of organising all these media files. That’s a fact when you’re dealing with thousands of images here.
Most of us tend to use Google Photos since it does the work for managing files. But the downside is that you’re no longer in full control of your data. Thankfully, we’ve got Synology Moments to help us out.
To get more insights and details about this smart solution from Synology, continue reading through our Synology Moments review.
Synology Moments Review – Design & Functionality
Our Synology Moments review has all the insights and details about this solution’s design and functions. You will learn new ways of keeping images and managing them quickly.
With the image recognising option, you can organise all your images with ease. This is all because it determines the people, subjects, and locations captured in the pictures.
With Moments, you can compile all your image files in one private spot. It’s designed to let you organise all your data in an entirely new and fresh way.
Easy Access on Smart Devices
It’s great that Synology allows you to access Moments via smartphone too. With that, your device’s storage won’t ever be limited, so you can take all the images you want. Immediately back these up securely in Moments to free all the necessary space in your device.
But what makes Moments better than the rest is that its photo library is exclusive to you. By permitting Shared Photo Library, you can easily edit images with other NAS users that you allow.
To do this, get the link of the images you want to share, and you’re all good. The people you share these with can only access the files you allow. So, you won’t have to worry about permission controls or others accessing images that you want just for yourself.
Key Features of Synology Moments
This time, we’ll be discussing the key features of Moments in our Synology Moments review. Let’s see what makes it better compared to other similar types of solutions that are available.
Everything in Order on Timeline Mode
With Synology Moments’ Timeline Mode, all your files and data are laid out in chronological order.
Auto Recognition for Seamless Convenience
With Moments, you can automatically and easily take advantage of special-subject or space recognition for images with auto-created albums.
Backup Each Moment
Your mobile device’s maximum storage capacity will no longer be your limitation. With Synology Moments, you can back up your photos.
You can view all your images in timeline mode, like how it’s shown on your smartphone’s gallery.
Categorise Moments Based on Topics
Synology’s deep learning algorithm automatically categorises and sorts images based on similar faces, places, and subjects.
Memories to look back on
With Synology Moments, you don’t need to scroll through your entire photo album to search for a file. All you have to do is type keywords on the search bar and see relevant results.
This excellent feature allows for easy file sharing with family, friends, and co-workers.
Collaborative Photo Editing
When you switch to Shared Photo Library, you can authorise users to collaborate on albums and images. You don’t have to worry about anything since it simultaneously keeps files private.
Personal Photo Library
Synology Moments’ photo library is exclusively for you. Other NAS users can access and edit your files only when you enable Shared Photo Library.
Experience an easier way of photo management
Here in our Synology Moments review, we’re also discussing the different photo management features of this application.
Live Photos Support
Synology Moments supports Live Photos, enabling you to view your memories in motion.
Auto Colour & Rotate
With Synology Moments’ AI, you can edit your files with ease. Apply Colour & Rotate, and your images will automatically have all the necessary adjustments.
Similar Photos
Moments stores duplicate images in one place for you to decide whether to delete them or not. This way, you can free up more storage space.
360-Degree View & Super Resolution
Share unique moments interactively with the 360-degree view for photos and videos.
Images created by the Super Resolution can be viewed even under unstable network conditions.
Specifications
No Synology Moments review will be complete without talking about its specifications, so let’s take a look at these.
Synology Moments supports a variety of file formats. For images, it supports GIF, BMP, JPEG, HEIC, RAW, PNG, and TIFF.
For video playback formats, these include M4V, 3G2, 3GP, AVI, ASF, DivX, and FLV. There’s also DAT, M4V, MPEG, MP4, MTS, M2TS M2T, WMV, XviD, and QT formats.
Moments even supports Apple’s Live Photos playback and the 360° photo & video playback.
The next thing we’re checking in our Synology Moments review is how well the application performed.
Hands-on with Synology Moments
First off, Moments is compatible and can work with the DSM 6.2.1-238 24 and higher. It’s downloadable from Synology’s Package Center. However, Home Service should be enabled first before you can use this.
It immediately created a folder for each user on the DiskStation where all files are kept when we enabled it.
Aside from this, we also had to install these packages from the Package Center. They’re Synology’s Universal Search, Application Service, and the Drive Server.
After installing these, uploading our photos to Moments was quick and easy. We didn’t have any issues with different file formats, including RAW files, which was great.
In addition, the application allowed us to store videos, but we did notice that it didn’t analyse such files. Instead, Moments only placed them in a Video Category.
Synology Moments: Mobile Application
You can download Synology Moments for free on Google Playstore. For those using iOS devices, you can find Synology Moments on Apple’s App Store.
Keep in mind that you should have a Synology NAS to be able to run this application. Plus, you need to run the latest Moments 1.2.0 to acquire the entire collection of features.
When we tried it, the app was pretty neat, and it’s quite advantageous too. That’s because we were able to set it automatically to upload images to the NAS. Doing this allowed us to determine if we wanted to limit uploads to Wi-Fi only or not.
This feature is good for those who want to save on data plans. Not only that, but we were able to set the uploads to continue only when our smartphone was charging. It’s a treat since Google removed this feature from their application.
It will also display all your images in a timely order while everything is sorted in topical albums. This makes it better and easier to refresh all your unique and memorable moments.
Uploading and Categorising Files
This time, let’s see how seamless uploading was, as well as categorising files. Once we uploaded everything we needed, our NAS started analysing our files then instantly tagging them according to the content.
After uploading a couple of photos, the CPU on our NAS was pegged at around 100% for some time. As for performance, it was a bit sluggish when we utilised other features on the device. But don’t worry since it was still usable and functioning well.
While our device was going through the images, we were able to easily check the Albums section. From there, we were able to see the application categorising files in real-time.
It’s pretty cool since it automatically and quickly puts faces in a group when it can’t recognise someone.
Facial Recognition and Tags
Facial recognition of Moments is exceptional. Even if we changed hairstyles in some pictures, it was still able to categorise images accordingly.
Aside from facial recognition, tagging was also very good with Moments. It readily tagged images according to the subject.
Some pictures that we had were focused on plants, trees, and flowers. Moments tagged these as gardens, and it included other images related as well.
Though we love how well Moments categorises images accordingly, it doesn’t have a way to correct its mistakes.
Synology Moments Review Summary
Basically, Moments is just like Google Photos, and it does a great job of organising images via learning technology. Although it’s a great software solution, it still has various features that need improvements to stay competitive with Google.
It would be great if Synology can detect animals’ faces and sort them out like Google Photos does.
Other than that, Synology Moments worked excellently, and we’re looking forward to seeing and using its enhanced features. Of course, we’d recommend it as well.
To summarise our Synology Moments review, we’re satisfied with its performance. It’s an excellent solution for organising your files if you have a Synology NAS.
