Previously, milk production recording (MPR) programs were introduced by breeding organizations to provide farmers with production information on one hand, and to evaluate genetic potential of bulls at the same time. For decades, MPR data have been the major source of production data on farms. Today, more and more data can be collected automatically on dairy farms through many innovative precision dairy technologies. These data are of potential value in genetic evaluations. However, because farmers have to invest first, a fair question is what the value of these technologies is for the farmer. Precision dairy technologies concern all the measurements on physiological, behavioral, and production variables on individual animals. This includes all hardware and software needed to capture the data, transform this into information, and support decision making. Technologies are advancing at a rapid rate and today it is possible to automatically collect data on milk yield, milk components, temperature, milk conductivity, SCC, rumen pH, progesterone, daily body weight, behavioral patterns of feeding, rumination, and activity, positioning, body condition scoring and (increasingly) more. As a result, farm management is better positioned to change from herd or group level to management by exception (i.e., cow-specific management for only those cows that require attention). Despite widespread availability, the adoption of on-farm technologies remains limited. An important reason is the uncertain economic benefit of investment. Some cost-benefit analyses have been made, e.g., for estrus detection systems economic benefits have been shown (in Europe). It is, therefore, no surprise that estrus detection systems, such as 3- dimensional accelerometers, are increasingly implemented on dairy farms. But for other promising technologies (e.g., rumen wireless telemetry for monitoring metabolic status), a lack of knowledge on what has to be measured and how to relate these measurements to actual management hinders proper economic evaluations. When cost-benefits to farmers for management purposes are unclear, implementation into genetic evaluations will remain limited; however, there is a promising future for precision phenotyping when the value proposition is clear and farmers readily adopt the technology.