Appointed as an adjunct professor in 1855, Smyslov taught practical astronomy and geodesy to officers of the Nicholas General Staff Academy, where "many prominent Russian geodesists were his students".

In 1859 or 1863 he published a book on chronometers and the Repsold meridian circle (Репсольдов круг, хронометры, хронометрическая экспедиция),[4] for which he received the Demidov Prize.

From 1866 to 1869, Smyslov and others measured the acceleration of the fall of a free body along the meridian from Jakobstad via Tartu to Vilnius with a tilting pendulum.

On 18 January 1883, Smyslov was dismissed from service due to the closure of his observatory in Vilnius, and was awarded the rank of major general.

[3] His name is engraved on the 1872 medal in memory of the 50th anniversary of the corps of military topographers (В память 50-летия Корпуса военных топографов).