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Agriculture · head to head

Lely Horizon vs SMARTBOW

Lely Horizon logo

Lely Horizon

Agriculture

Dairy herd management software billed per lactating cow that only runs a Lely robot barn

From
On request
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: Lely Horizon billing is per lactating cow, so the software cost grows with the herd indefinitely and a farm that expands from 120 to 200 cows takes a permanent software cost increase it did not budget when it bought the robots.; 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: Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, SMARTBOW covers Real-time location.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Lely Horizon and SMARTBOW actually diverge.

Attributes where Lely Horizon and SMARTBOW differ
AttributeLely HorizonSMARTBOW
PlatformsWeb, iOS, Android, WindowsWindows, Web, iOS, Android

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), 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 Lely Horizon

  • Per-cow milking data
  • Health and fertility alerts
  • Work list generation
  • Feed management
  • Farm Management Support
  • Multi-site view
  • Mobile alerts
  • Reporting and benchmarking

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.

Lely Horizon

  • A 180-cow dairy running four Astronaut robots that needs the attention list to replace walking the barn twice a daynot SMARTBOW
  • A farm adding Vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milkingnot SMARTBOW
  • A dairy manager tracking transition cow health across two sites from one accountnot SMARTBOW
  • A Lely advisor benchmarking a client's robot utilisation against comparable farms before recommending a fourth boxnot SMARTBOW

SMARTBOW

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

Where each one falls short

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

Lely Horizon

  • Billing is per lactating cow, so the software cost grows with the herd indefinitely and a farm that expands from 120 to 200 cows takes a permanent software cost increase it did not budget when it bought the robots.
  • Horizon is not optional: the barn equipment depends on it, so the subscription cannot be cancelled in a difficult year the way a discretionary analytics tool can, which removes any negotiating position at renewal.
  • It manages Lely equipment and effectively nothing else, so a farm running a Lely robot alongside a conventional parlour or another manufacturer's feeder ends up with two systems and no combined cow record.
  • The migration from the older T4C system was compulsory and rebuilt the interface and reporting, and farms that had years of T4C reports and custom lists found the equivalents either missing or shaped differently, costing retraining time.
  • Everything is bought and supported through the local Lely Center, so pricing, response time and the quality of advice vary by dealer with no published rate card, and a farm with a weak local centre has no practical alternative supplier.

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

Lely Horizon

On request
  • Horizon Basic$undefined/month
    • Core robot operation and monitoring
    • Per lactating cow subscription
    • Invoiced digitally by the local Lely Center
  • Horizon Control$undefined/month
    • Adds herd management and fertility tooling
    • Per lactating cow subscription
  • Horizon Advance$undefined/month
    • Adds analysis, benchmarking and advisor tooling
    • Per lactating cow subscription

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 Lely Horizon if

  • You need per-cow milking data.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
  • You also want health and fertility alerts.
Lely Horizon 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 Lely Horizon or SMARTBOW better?
Neither clearly leads. Lely Horizon starts at On request and SMARTBOW at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Lely Horizon or SMARTBOW?
Lely Horizon starts at On request and SMARTBOW at On request.
Does Lely Horizon or SMARTBOW run on more platforms?
Lely Horizon runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows. SMARTBOW runs on Windows, Web, iOS, Android.
What is Lely Horizon best used for?
Lely Horizon is most often used for a 180-cow dairy running four astronaut robots that needs the attention list to replace walking the barn twice a day, a farm adding vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milking, a dairy manager tracking transition cow health across two sites from one account, a lely advisor benchmarking a client's robot utilisation against comparable farms before recommending a fourth box. Of those, a 180-cow dairy running four astronaut robots that needs the attention list to replace walking the barn twice a day and a farm adding vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milking are not what SMARTBOW is typically brought in for.
What can Lely Horizon do that SMARTBOW cannot?
Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Health and fertility alerts, Work list generation, Feed management. SMARTBOW covers Real-time location, Heat detection, Rumination monitoring, Health alerts.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Lely Horizon: How is Lely Horizon priced?

As a subscription per lactating cow milked by the Astronaut robots, in Basic, Control and Advance tiers. Lely does not publish rates; the local Lely Center quotes them.

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.

Lely Horizon: Can I run Horizon without Lely robots?

No. It is the control and management layer for Lely equipment and has no meaningful function without it.

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.

Lely Horizon: What happened to T4C?

Horizon replaced it. Migration was required rather than optional, and reporting was rebuilt rather than ported.

SMARTBOW: Who owns it?

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

Lely Horizon: Does the subscription end when the robot is paid off?

No. It continues for as long as the robots are milking, which is the cost most robot business cases understate.

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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