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Agriculture · head to head

AgriWater vs SMARTBOW

A

AgriWater

Agriculture

Smart irrigation management platform

From
$45/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
SMARTBOW logo

SMARTBOW

Agriculture

Ear tag cow monitoring with real-time indoor location, from Zoetis

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: AgriWater company status: AgriWater's parent company Puricare has ceased trading; current product availability and support status unclear; SMARTBOW real-time location depends on receivers covering the whole barn plus an on-farm server, so the install is a building project and the price bears no relation to what a simple activity collar costs.
  • They diverge on capability: AgriWater covers Irrigation scheduling, SMARTBOW covers Real-time location.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which AgriWater and SMARTBOW actually diverge.

Attributes where AgriWater and SMARTBOW differ
AttributeAgriWaterSMARTBOW
Starting price$45/monthOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidWindows, Web, iOS, Android
Founded2017Unknown

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Agriculture).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in AgriWater

  • Irrigation scheduling
  • Soil moisture monitoring
  • Water usage tracking
  • Pump automation
  • Weather forecasting
  • Valley Irrigation
  • Lindsay Zimmatic
  • Netafim

Only in SMARTBOW

  • Real-time location
  • Heat detection
  • Rumination monitoring
  • Health alerts
  • On-farm server
  • Individual baselines
  • Herd software integration

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

AgriWater

  • Irrigation optimizationnot SMARTBOW
  • Water conservationnot SMARTBOW
  • Compliance reportingnot SMARTBOW
  • Remote monitoringnot SMARTBOW

SMARTBOW

  • A 1,500 cow freestall barn where finding a flagged animal by eye takes twenty minutesnot AgriWater
  • A dairy replacing visual heat detection with per-animal oestrus alerts to tighten calving intervalsnot AgriWater
  • A herd manager wanting rumination-based early warning of displaced abomasum or metritisnot AgriWater
  • A vet practice using behavioural data to audit transition cow management across client herdsnot AgriWater

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

AgriWater

  • Company status: AgriWater's parent company Puricare has ceased trading; current product availability and support status unclear
  • Limited publicly available documentation and technical specifications

SMARTBOW

  • Real-time location depends on receivers covering the whole barn plus an on-farm server, so the install is a building project and the price bears no relation to what a simple activity collar costs.
  • It is an indoor system; a grazing or partly grazed herd loses the location capability that is the main reason to choose it over cheaper monitoring.
  • Ear tags are consumable and go missing with the tag, so the running cost includes replacements at a rate that depends on how rough your handling facilities are.
  • Zoetis ownership means a pharmaceutical company holds continuous behavioural data on every animal alongside your treatment records, and the integration roadmap favours other Zoetis products.
  • Nothing is published on price, and sales run through veterinary and dealer channels, so comparing it against DeLaval, Nedap or CowManager requires several quotes and there is no reference list price.

Pricing, plan by plan

AgriWater

$45/month
  • Basic$45/month
    • Irrigation scheduling
    • Soil moisture data
    • Weather integration
  • Professional$125/month
    • All Basic features
    • Pump control
    • Water usage analytics
  • EnterpriseFree
    • Multi-site management
    • API access
    • Custom integrations

SMARTBOW

On request
  • SMARTBOW$undefined/year
    • Ear tags priced per animal
    • Barn receiver infrastructure and on-farm server quoted per building
    • Installation and commissioning quoted separately

Which should you pick?

Choose AgriWater if

  • You need irrigation scheduling.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want soil moisture monitoring.
AgriWater review

Choose SMARTBOW if

  • You need real-time location.
  • You work on Windows, Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want heat detection.
SMARTBOW review

Questions people ask

Is AgriWater or SMARTBOW better?
Neither clearly leads. AgriWater starts at $45/month and SMARTBOW at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, AgriWater or SMARTBOW?
AgriWater starts at $45/month and SMARTBOW at On request.
Does AgriWater or SMARTBOW run on more platforms?
AgriWater runs on Web, Ios, Android. SMARTBOW runs on Windows, Web, iOS, Android.
What is AgriWater best used for?
AgriWater is most often used for irrigation optimization, water conservation, compliance reporting, remote monitoring. Of those, irrigation optimization and water conservation are not what SMARTBOW is typically brought in for.
What can AgriWater do that SMARTBOW cannot?
AgriWater covers Irrigation scheduling, Soil moisture monitoring, Water usage tracking, Pump automation. SMARTBOW covers Real-time location, Heat detection, Rumination monitoring, Health alerts.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

AgriWater: What is AgriWater technology?

AgriWater is a nature-based water treatment technology that accelerates regenerative outcomes in agriculture by increasing the effectiveness of existing irrigation water and creating favorable conditions for soil microbial activity. It is a compact water treatment system easily incorporated into existing water distribution networks.

Source
SMARTBOW: What does SMARTBOW do that other activity monitors do not?

Real-time indoor location. It tells you where the flagged cow physically is, not just that she is behaving abnormally.

AgriWater: How widely has AgriWater been tested?

AgriWater has been scientifically researched and practically proven on over 300 operational farms in more than 10 countries on 4 continents, covering around 60,000 hectares of land and managing more than 400 billion litres of water per year.

SMARTBOW: Does it work on grazing herds?

Poorly. Location depends on barn-mounted receivers, so animals out at pasture fall outside the system's coverage.

AgriWater: Who developed AgriWater?

AgriWater was developed by R&D company Puricare as part of a suite of applications and services.

SMARTBOW: Who owns it?

Zoetis, which also owns Valley Agricultural Software and DairyComp. The technology came from Smartbow GmbH in Austria.

SMARTBOW: Is it cloud based?

Analysis runs on an on-farm server rather than in the cloud, which keeps it working during an internet outage but makes the server your responsibility.

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