For beta testers

Crowdsourcing & Sniffer Guide

Two short recordings from your own vehicle can teach SmartChecker a new control or a new live-data reading. Here's why that matters, and how to make recordings we can decode.

Why we need your recordings

Every control and live-data reading SmartChecker adds has to be learned from a real vehicle. We follow a strict clean-room rule: we never copy manufacturer software, service-manual data or another tool's database. Everything we build comes from published standards and from recordings made on real cars.

That rule keeps SmartChecker safe to sell and safe for you to rely on. It also means coverage grows only as fast as real cars get recorded. Our team can record a handful of vehicles. Hundreds of testers recording the cars in their own driveways and bays can record thousands.

When you record your vehicle, you're building that coverage with us, and it ends up in a tool you buy once instead of renting every year.

Clean by design

Built from recordings testers make on their own vehicles. Nothing is copied from manufacturer or tool-maker software.

Built by working techs

Every clean recording fills a gap for the next tech who works on the same vehicle.

No subscription

The big-name tools charge every year for this kind of coverage. Your recordings help put it in a license you buy once.

What you need

SmartChecker on your Windows PC.
An adapter that can listen to the bus. If yours can't, the CAN Sniffer page says so as soon as you connect.
A CAN vehicle. In the US, that's every car and light truck from 2008 on, and many earlier ones.
Your SmartChecker account, to upload the files.
About five minutes per action.

The Isolation Method

Each action needs two short recordings that differ in only one way. We line them up, and whatever changed in the second one is the signal for that action.

Baseline log30 seconds, hands off

Action logOne action, done once

The signalThe messages that changed

1
Step 1: The Baseline
About 1 minute

A recording of the vehicle doing nothing. It shows us the normal background traffic, so we can ignore it later.
1. Connect to the vehicle with the key ON, then open CAN Sniffer in SmartChecker's menu.
2. Set the vehicle up exactly as it will be for the action: same key position, engine on or off, doors shut, and nothing switched on that doesn't need to be.
3. In What will you do on the car?, type Baseline, nothing touched.
4. Leave High-speed CAN selected unless you know your action is on the other network. Use the same network for both recordings.
5. Click Start Sniffing, then don't touch anything for 30 seconds: no switches, no pedals, no doors, and nobody getting in or out.
6. Click Stop Sniffing, then Export to CSV. Give the file a name you'll recognize, such as 2016-f150-baseline.csv.
2
Step 2: The Action
About 1 minute

ImportantOnly perform ONE action per log. If you roll down a window, turn on the radio, and press the brakes in the same log, the data becomes too noisy for us to decode!

Same vehicle, same setup, one change.
1. Keep everything as it was for the baseline: same key position, same engine state, same network.
2. In What will you do on the car?, describe the one thing you're about to do, such as Driver window down, one press.
3. Click Start Sniffing and wait about 5 seconds.
4. Do exactly one action, once. For example, roll the driver's window down, or press the brake pedal once and let it go.
5. Wait another 5 seconds, then click Stop Sniffing and Export to CSV, for example 2016-f150-driver-window-down.csv.
Good single actions

Driver window downBrake pedal pressed onceDoors locked from the driver's switch Hazard lights onRear defrost onLow beams on

Want to help more? Record the same action two or three more times, each in its own log. Three clean repeats tell us more than one long, busy recording.
3
Step 3: The Upload
About 2 minutes

Upload both files together, so we always know which baseline goes with which action.

Quickest: click Upload to Hub on the CAN Sniffer page right after the action recording. The app attaches both recordings and fills in the vehicle for you (the PC needs to be activated online). The steps below are for uploading on the website.
1. Sign in and open Share CAN recordings on the Hub.
2. Add both CSV files: the baseline and the action.
3. Tag the exact vehicle: Year, Make, Model and Engine. If an option matters to the action, add it too (auto-down windows, push-button start).
4. Write a detailed description of exactly what you did: which control, how many times, about how many seconds into the recording, and whether the engine was running.
5. Tick the box confirming you recorded both files yourself, on a vehicle you own (or whose owner agreed), with no other scan tool sending commands.
Tag the vehicle like this

Year
2016

Make
Ford

Model
F-150

Engine
3.5L V6

Describe the action like this

ClearDriver window down: one press of the driver's master switch, auto-down. Pressed about 5 seconds into the log. Key ON, engine off, all doors shut.

Too vagueTested the windows.

A person reviews every upload. We compare your action log with its baseline to find what changed, then confirm the result on a vehicle before it becomes a feature.

Upload your recordings CAN Sniffer in the system manual

If something goes wrong

"Stopped. No traffic was seen"	Turn the key ON (a running engine is fine too) and check that the adapter is seated in the port.
"This adapter or vehicle can't listen to the bus"	Your adapter can't record raw traffic, or the vehicle doesn't use CAN. The system manual lists the adapters that can.
"The capture buffer is full"	A recording stops at 1,000,000 frames. Keep each log to 30–60 seconds.
The Hub says a file is larger than 25 MB	Each file can be up to 25 MB, which is about two minutes of recording. Record it again and keep it to 30–60 seconds.
The Hub says it "isn't a SmartChecker CAN capture"	Upload the file exactly as Export to CSV saved it. Opening it in Excel and saving it again changes the format.
You did two things by accident	Delete that log and record it again. A clean redo is always better than a noisy log.

What's in the file

The time, CAN ID and data bytes of every frame, plus a short header: the app version, adapter, network, the vehicle description and your action text. SmartChecker doesn't write your VIN, your name or your shop into the file. The raw traffic can still include data the vehicle broadcasts on its own, so only record vehicles you own or whose owner has agreed.