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Agriculture · head to head

PrecisionHawk vs SMARTBOW

PrecisionHawk logo

PrecisionHawk

Agriculture

Enterprise drone and analytics platform

From
$29/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: PrecisionHawk no pricing information published on website; 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: PrecisionHawk covers Autonomous flight, SMARTBOW covers Real-time location.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which PrecisionHawk and SMARTBOW actually diverge.

Attributes where PrecisionHawk and SMARTBOW differ
AttributePrecisionHawkSMARTBOW
Starting price$29/monthOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidWindows, Web, iOS, Android
Founded2010Unknown

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 PrecisionHawk

  • Autonomous flight
  • Multispectral imagery
  • AI analysis
  • Prescription maps
  • Enterprise dashboard
  • DJI
  • senseFly
  • Major farm platforms

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.

PrecisionHawk

  • Crop scoutingnot SMARTBOW
  • Damage assessmentnot SMARTBOW
  • Enterprise analyticsnot SMARTBOW

SMARTBOW

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

Where each one falls short

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

PrecisionHawk

  • No pricing information published on website

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

PrecisionHawk

$29/month
  • StandardFree
    • Custom pricing
    • Drone data
    • Basic analytics
  • EnterpriseFree
    • Custom pricing
    • Full platform
    • API access

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 PrecisionHawk if

  • You need autonomous flight.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want multispectral imagery.
PrecisionHawk 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 PrecisionHawk or SMARTBOW better?
Neither clearly leads. PrecisionHawk starts at $29/month and SMARTBOW at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, PrecisionHawk or SMARTBOW?
PrecisionHawk starts at $29/month and SMARTBOW at On request.
Does PrecisionHawk or SMARTBOW run on more platforms?
PrecisionHawk runs on Web, Ios, Android. SMARTBOW runs on Windows, Web, iOS, Android.
What is PrecisionHawk best used for?
PrecisionHawk is most often used for crop scouting, damage assessment, enterprise analytics. Of those, crop scouting and damage assessment are not what SMARTBOW is typically brought in for.
What can PrecisionHawk do that SMARTBOW cannot?
PrecisionHawk covers Autonomous flight, Multispectral imagery, AI analysis, Prescription maps. SMARTBOW covers Real-time location, Heat detection, Rumination monitoring, Health alerts.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

PrecisionHawk: How much does PrecisionHawk cost?

PrecisionHawk does not publish pricing information on their website.

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.

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.

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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