Helix UI Deep Dive: Dashboard Visualization and Data Logging

The Helix web interface is designed to give you full control over your CAN bus data — from real-time visualization to long-term recording. In this article we take a closer look at the two core features: Dashboards and the Logger.

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Dashboard: Your CAN Data, Your Way

The dashboard is the heart of Helix. It provides a flexible, widget-based layout where you can visualize CAN signals in real-time or play back recorded data.

Widget Types

Helix includes several widget types to suit different use cases:

Chart Widgets:

• Time Series — Multi-axis line charts for tracking signal values over time. Multiple signals can share a chart with independent Y-axes.
• Shared Y-Axis — Line charts where all signals share a single scale, useful for comparing related values.
• Console — Raw CAN frame display with filtering and search. See every frame as it arrives on the bus.

Control Widgets:

• Radial Gauge — Circular gauge for displaying a single value, ideal for RPM, temperature, or pressure.
• Linear Gauge — Horizontal or vertical bar gauge for quick visual reference.

Interactive Controls:

• Sliders, toggles, knobs, steppers, and numeric inputs for sending values back to the CAN bus via agents.

Dashboard Toolbar

The toolbar gives you quick access to essential functions:

• Play/Pause — Start or stop live data streaming
• Time range selector — View the last 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, or a custom range
• Activity selector — Jump to specific recorded sessions and play them back
• Import/Export — Import CSV data or export your current view in multiple formats
• Add widget — Create new visualization or control widgets

Console Panel

Below the dashboard, the console panel provides three tabs:

• Terminal — Live CAN frame display with filtering by ID, channel, and direction (RX/TX). Supports scrolling and fixed modes.
• Problems — System and plugin errors with contextual help links.
• Output — Plugin debug logs and performance information.

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Logger: Capture Everything

The Helix logger records CAN bus data continuously to the device's internal storage, allowing you to review and export sessions later.

Disk Usage

The logger page starts with a clear overview of storage status — used space, free space, and total capacity. The available logging storage depends on the SD card size in your Helix device, and 100% of the card capacity is available for recording.

Stored Data

Below the disk summary, you can see all recorded sessions in a bar chart visualization. The overview shows sessions across time with frame counts per channel (Channel 1 in orange, Channel 2 in blue). The logarithmic scale handles everything from 10 frames to 100 million frames in a single view.

Export Options

Select any session or partition and export it in your preferred format:

• CSV — Helix format with Timestamp, Channel, ID, DLC, Flags, and Data columns
• Candump (.txt) — Standard Linux candump format, compatible with SocketCAN tools like canplayer and cansniffer

Logger Settings

Configure automatic recording behavior in Settings > Logger:

• Auto-start logging — Begin recording as soon as the device powers on
• Log rotation — Automatically create new files when size limits are reached

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Designed for Productivity

Everything in the Helix UI is built to minimize clicks and maximize insight. Synchronized charts share cursor position, pan, and zoom. The sidebar shows CAN channel status, logging state, and system health at a glance. And because it all runs in the browser, you can access it from your laptop, tablet, or phone.

Next up: Learn about Helix connectivity options — USB, WiFi, 4G, and VPN.