Setup guide

From box to first reply,
in three stages.

Allow an hour. The first pull takes the longest; every later reply is instant and stays on your home network. Walk the stages in order.

Stage 1 · 5 minutes

Unbox and place Tank.

Tank ships in a small box with the essentials. You don't need tools.

What's in the box

  • NOBS Tank device
  • USB-C power brick + USB-C cable
  • Ethernet patch cable
  • Quick-start card

Ports and power

  • USB-C power — Tank draws less than 12 W, so the included brick is all you need.
  • Wi-Fi 6 + 2.5 GbE — Tank prefers Ethernet; Wi-Fi works equally well.
  • Recycled-aluminum enclosure — silent, fanless, and comfortable anywhere a router sits.

Checklist

  • Confirm Tank is in the box, undamaged.
  • Confirm the USB-C power brick + cable are present.
  • Pick a spot near your router — ventilated, in view, on a shelf.

Stage 2 · 10 minutes

Pair Tank over the network you own.

Tank is reachable only on the network you own. Choose Tailscale when in doubt; use the LAN fallback when you want to skip an account. Neither path exposes Tank to the internet.

Recommended

Tailscale

Same Tailscale account on every device.

Tailscale makes Tank reachable to your iPhone and Mac exactly as if they were on the same Wi-Fi — even when they aren't. It's a tiny app; no cloud routing involved.

  • Install Tailscale on Tank, then on your iPhone and Mac.
  • Sign in to the same Tailscale account on each device.
  • Tank joins as a node — iPhone and Mac see it on a Tailscale IP.

LAN fallback · no Tailscale

Same Wi-Fi, plain Bonjour discovery.

If you'd rather skip a Tailscale account, Tank and your devices can sit on the same Wi-Fi. NOBS uses Bonjour to discover Tank on your local network automatically — no cloud, no port-forward, no public address.

  • Put Tank and your iPhone / Mac on the same Wi-Fi network.
  • No cloud round-trip. No port-forward. No DDNS. Nothing leaves the building.

Checklist

  • Tailscale installed on Tank + iPhone + Mac, signed in to the same account — OR — Tank and devices on the same Wi-Fi.
  • Open NOBS on iPhone or Mac → Tank is listed under devices.

Stage 3 · 15 minutes to an hour

Download your first local model.

First run downloads a model once. Every later turn runs local — instantly — with no network call at all.

Pick by Tank RAM

Open-weight models in the table below are the ones we recommend today. They fit, they reason well, and they stay on Tank.

16 GB
Recommended
Qwen 2.5 7B Instruct (Q4_K_M)≈ 4.4 GB on diskFits comfortably, single-user feel. The default for a 16 GB Tank.
32 GB
Mistral Small 22B Instruct (Q4_K_M)≈ 12 GB on diskBetter follow-through across multi-turn briefings. Recommended for a 32 GB Tank.
64 GB+
Llama 3.1 70B Instruct (Q4_K_M)≈ 40 GB on diskClose to frontier quality, still local. For a 64 GB+ Tank.

Where models live

Models are stored in ~/.nobs/models/ on Tank. They never leave Tank. They never reach a server.

First-pull timing

The first download pulls the full model file once. Realistic ranges on a 50 Mbps connection:

  • 7B — roughly 6 to 12 minutes
  • 22B — roughly 15 to 25 minutes
  • 70B — roughly 45 to 90 minutes

Checklist

  • Open NOBS on Tank → Settings → Models → pick a row → Pull.
  • Don’t unplug Tank during the first pull.
  • After the first pull, every turn is instant and local.

Need help? Email [email protected].