SMARTBOWvs
DairyComp
DairyComp: If you need the herd record itself rather than sensors, from the same corporate parent
SMARTBOW
Ear tag cow monitoring with real-time indoor location, from Zoetis
As of 1 September 2026, SMARTBOW's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. An Austrian ear tag system, now Zoetis owned, that does heat detection, rumination and something almost nobody else offers: real-time location of every cow inside the barn. Softwr lists it under Agriculture. SMARTBOW is made by Smartbow GmbH, a Zoetis company, available on Windows, Web, iOS, Android.
Overview
What SMARTBOW does
SMARTBOW is an ear tag sensor system for dairy cattle. Each tag streams motion data continuously to receivers mounted around the barn, which forward it to an on-farm server where per-animal algorithms analyse behaviour. The system reports oestrus, rumination time, and health-relevant behaviour changes, and it locates each animal in real time within the building. Zoetis, which acquired the Austrian developer, markets it as part of a portfolio that also includes DairyComp herd management and the wider Zoetis animal health range. Real-time location is what separates it from the wrist of the category. Most activity monitoring systems tell you a cow is behaving abnormally; SMARTBOW tells you which pen she is standing in, so a stockperson can walk directly to her rather than search a thousand-cow barn. On a large freestall dairy where finding a specific animal takes twenty minutes, that changes the economics of acting on every alert instead of only the obvious ones. It also means the system only works indoors within receiver coverage, so a grazing herd gets little from the feature that justifies the price. The cost structure is barn infrastructure rather than software. Receivers must cover the whole building, an on-farm server has to be installed and maintained, and the tags themselves are consumables that get lost with the ear tag. None of this is published, and Zoetis sells through veterinary and dealer channels, so pricing is a conversation rather than a page. The buyer is a housed dairy of a few hundred cows upward with a vet or consultant already in the Zoetis orbit. A grazing system, a small herd, or a dairy wary of its pharmaceutical supplier holding its behavioural and treatment data should look elsewhere.
What people use it 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
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about 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.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of SMARTBOW
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- SMARTBOWvsGEA DairyNet
GEA DairyNet: If the barn is GEA equipped and you want monitoring inside the milking vendor stack
- SMARTBOWvsHalter
Halter: If the herd grazes and you want collar-based monitoring plus virtual fencing
Pricing
What SMARTBOW costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
SMARTBOW
On request
- Ear tags priced per animal
- Barn receiver infrastructure and on-farm server quoted per building
- Installation and commissioning quoted separately
- Sold through Zoetis veterinary and dealer channels
Capabilities
Features
Real-time location
Locates individual animals inside the barn rather than only flagging them
Heat detection
Per-animal oestrus alerts learned from that cow's own baseline behaviour
Rumination monitoring
Continuous rumination time as an early health indicator
Health alerts
Behaviour deviations surfaced before clinical signs appear
On-farm server
Analysis runs locally rather than depending on a cloud connection
Individual baselines
Compares each cow to her own pattern instead of a herd benchmark
Herd software integration
Pushes alerts and events into DairyComp and other herd records
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
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.
Does it work on grazing herds?
Poorly. Location depends on barn-mounted receivers, so animals out at pasture fall outside the system's coverage.
Who owns it?
Zoetis, which also owns Valley Agricultural Software and DairyComp. The technology came from Smartbow GmbH in Austria.
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.
Keep looking
Where to go from SMARTBOW
- SMARTBOW alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- SMARTBOW pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- SMARTBOW badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Agriculture softwareThe full category
- Best Agriculture softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Agriculture software for
Compare SMARTBOW with
- Halter
- DairyComp
- GEA DairyNet
- Nedap Livestock Management
- Allflex Livestock Intelligence
- Davis Instruments WeatherLink
- Lely Horizon
- Connecterra
- Sentera
- Cropio
- Lindsay FieldNET
- Teralytic
- GrainBridge
- Growers Edge
- Indigo Agriculture
- John Deere Operations Center
- OneSoil
- Lindsay FieldNET
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for SMARTBOW, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on SMARTBOW
SMARTBOW alternatives
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