What is the diff?

Looks like they do kinda the same.

Well if I'm right the Smartcraft is for mercruiser motors and the vessel veiw is for the mercury racing motors, all the blue motors. The reason I know this is because I have a 496HO in my boat and I wanted to put a 525 in it and the shop told me that my smartcraft wouldn't support the blue racing motors. So I would have to install a new motor, wiring harness, and vessel veiw. Didn't seem to be worth it to me. Whatever motor you have get one of these systems, they are great!!! I love mine, hope this helped.

First thing is either one will work on any mercury/me cruiser smart craft ready engines. The main diffrence is the race view has some features like inches per rev/max speed with max rpm and trim settings etc. It is ideal for seting up a boat and trying props. I have them on my skater. The vessel view will not provide any of that. You can visit merc racing website for more info.
I recommend the race views

Good luck

Thanks guys

Have I understood this correctly. The old Smartcraft is now the standard Vesselview, and the race edit. is one with more features? I looked at merc racing's site, but coulden't find the info I wanted. Does the VV race also display things such as fuel use/level and other general things like that?

Vessel view does not display fuel pressure or oil temp. It does do tabs, trim and fuel used. I am looking to upgrade to raceview just for those two items.

I have the SC1000 gauge. It shows RPMs, water pressure, water temp, oil pressure, oil temp, volts, trim level, total hours, gallons per hour, gallons used. And probably some other things that I haven't figured out yet.