Agriculture · head to head
SMARTBOW vs Soil Scout
SMARTBOW
Agriculture
Ear tag cow monitoring with real-time indoor location, from Zoetis
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Soil Scout
Agriculture
Buried wireless soil sensors with a ten to twenty year battery and no cables to the surface
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: 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.; Soil Scout sensors are unserviceable once buried, so a failed or drifting unit means excavation and the confidence you place in a single reading has no easy verification.
- They diverge on capability: SMARTBOW covers Real-time location, Soil Scout covers Fully buried sensors.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which SMARTBOW and Soil Scout actually diverge.
| Attribute | SMARTBOW | Soil Scout |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Windows, Web, iOS, Android | Web |
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 SMARTBOW
- Real-time location
- Heat detection
- Rumination monitoring
- Health alerts
- On-farm server
- Individual baselines
- Herd software integration
Only in Soil Scout
- Fully buried sensors
- Ten to twenty year battery
- Underground radio
- Dual depth sensing
- Moisture, temperature and salinity
- Soil Scout Hub
- Web service API
- Long base station range
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
SMARTBOW
- A 1,500 cow freestall barn where finding a flagged animal by eye takes twenty minutesnot Soil Scout
- A dairy replacing visual heat detection with per-animal oestrus alerts to tighten calving intervalsnot Soil Scout
- A herd manager wanting rumination-based early warning of displaced abomasum or metritisnot Soil Scout
- A vet practice using behavioural data to audit transition cow management across client herdsnot Soil Scout
Soil Scout
- A golf course monitoring greens moisture where a surface-mounted probe would be hit by mowers and playnot SMARTBOW
- A stadium pitch under a closed roof where hand-held probing is impractical during the seasonnot SMARTBOW
- A research plot needing consistent multi-year soil data below cultivation depthnot SMARTBOW
- An irrigated field where a surface logger would not survive tillage or a spray boomnot SMARTBOW
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
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.
Soil Scout
- Sensors are unserviceable once buried, so a failed or drifting unit means excavation and the confidence you place in a single reading has no easy verification.
- No pricing is published at all, which makes it hard to justify against commodity probes that quote openly, and per-sensor cost is well above the alternatives.
- It measures but does not control, so tying moisture readings to actual irrigation decisions requires either manual interpretation or a separate integration project with the control system.
- Underground radio range depends on soil type and moisture; heavy wet clay attenuates the signal and can force more base stations than the headline kilometre figure suggests.
- The company is small and Finland-based, so outside its established golf and sports turf distribution the support, spares and installation expertise depend entirely on whether a competent local distributor exists.
Pricing, plan by plan
SMARTBOW
On request- SMARTBOW$undefined/year
- Ear tags priced per animal
- Barn receiver infrastructure and on-farm server quoted per building
- Installation and commissioning quoted separately
Soil Scout
On request- Soil Scout$undefined/year
- Sensors and base station quoted per site
- Hub subscription terms quoted with the hardware
- No individual sensor data plans required
Which should you pick?
Choose SMARTBOW if
- You need real-time location.
- You work on Windows, Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want heat detection.
Choose Soil Scout if
- You need fully buried sensors.
- You also want ten to twenty year battery.
Questions people ask
- Is SMARTBOW or Soil Scout better?
- Neither clearly leads. SMARTBOW starts at On request and Soil Scout at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, SMARTBOW or Soil Scout?
- SMARTBOW starts at On request and Soil Scout at On request.
- Does SMARTBOW or Soil Scout run on more platforms?
- SMARTBOW runs on Windows, Web, iOS, Android. Soil Scout runs on Web.
- What is SMARTBOW best used for?
- SMARTBOW is most often used for a 1,500 cow freestall barn where finding a flagged animal by eye takes twenty minutes, a dairy replacing visual heat detection with per-animal oestrus alerts to tighten calving intervals, a herd manager wanting rumination-based early warning of displaced abomasum or metritis, a vet practice using behavioural data to audit transition cow management across client herds. Of those, a 1,500 cow freestall barn where finding a flagged animal by eye takes twenty minutes and a dairy replacing visual heat detection with per-animal oestrus alerts to tighten calving intervals are not what Soil Scout is typically brought in for.
- What can SMARTBOW do that Soil Scout cannot?
- SMARTBOW covers Real-time location, Heat detection, Rumination monitoring, Health alerts. Soil Scout covers Fully buried sensors, Ten to twenty year battery, Underground radio, Dual depth sensing.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
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.
Soil Scout: How long do the sensors last?
Up to ten years for the Happi100 and up to twenty for the Hydra100, buried, with no battery replacement.
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.
Soil Scout: Do the sensors need mobile data plans?
No. Sensors transmit to a base station through the soil, and only the base station uses a cellular modem.
SMARTBOW: Who owns it?
Zoetis, which also owns Valley Agricultural Software and DairyComp. The technology came from Smartbow GmbH in Austria.
Soil Scout: Can it control irrigation directly?
No. It is a measurement and alerting system; controlling valves needs an integration with your irrigation controller through the API.
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.
Soil Scout: What happens if a buried sensor fails?
You dig it up. There is no remote service option, which is the trade-off for having nothing above ground to damage.
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