When it
comes to making dress watches, Citizen has been making innovative, high quality
dress watches for over a century. Their Eco-Drive watches that use light to
power the watch is awesome. So it’s no surprise that they also make smart watches.
Up for review today is their Citizen CZ Smart Hybrid Gen-2 smart watch, with $425
MSRP.
Features and
specs:
MODEL: JX2006-52E
MOVEMENT
TECHNOLOGY: YF30
Google Wear
OS: CZ Smart is powered with Wear OS by Google™ and is compatible with both
iPhone® and Android™ phones.
CASE WIDTH
(MM): 44
LUG WIDTH
(MM): 26
BAND TYPE: Bracelet
Stainless Steel
CASE
MATERIAL: Silver Stainless Steel
CRYSTAL: Mineral
Crystal Impact and shatter resistant
CLASP: Fold
Over Clasp with Push Buttons
DIAL: Black
WATER-RESISTANCE:
WR [Splash Resistant]
ADDITIONAL
FUNCTIONS: Alarm / Day Date, Calendar, Chronograph / Alarm, Dual Time Zone, World
Timer, Backlight, Bluetooth Connectivity, Calendar Event, Notification, Call Connectivity
Features iPhone and Android Bluetooth
Vibration
Alert: Email
Activity
Progress Tracker - track steps, distance, calories burned, sleep, and personal
goals
Activity
Progress Tracker - track steps, distance, calories burned, sleep and personal
goals
Take Remote
Photos
Control
Music
Volume
Adjustment
Ability to
track sleep
Digital
Display
LCD Display
The Citizen CZ
Smart Hybrid Gen-2 came in a great looking color printed box, with photos and
specs of the watch. Opening the box revealed a well-protected watch held in
place by custom molded foam. Materials used in the construction was mostly
stainless steel, with mineral crystal. Quality of materials used, as well as
fit and finish, was excellent. Also included is the charging cable and manuals.
I love the
design of the Citizen CZ Smart Hybrid smart watch. The case is beefy and
extremely solid, the quality that Citizen is known for. The face is covered by
an attractive yet tough mineral crystal to combat scratches. The band is an
elegant looking stainless steel, which unlike cheap bands has a smooth and
unhindered movement to the links. The censors are located on the back of the
case. Buttons are on the right side of the case, to control the functionality.
And there are other bands available, such as leather and silicone, that can be
switched out, depending on your preference and wardrobe.
One of the
main keys of the design is its hybrid functionality. Most smart watches have
the entire watch face as a beautiful color display. But that requires power,
which often times needs to be recharged every few days. The Citizen design
features analog hands, like the rest of their dress watches. But instead of the
power-hungry color display, it features a digital and LCD display. This gets
you battery life up to 18 days.
For the
design, Citizen used the best of both worlds. There are a lot of smart watches
to choose from, but most look like just regular cheap watches. Citizen took the
look of their beefy and luxurious watches, and added a smart watch to it.
Hence, the best of both worlds. You get the smart watch functionality in an
excellent dress watch!
Whether you
are new or experienced with smart watches, Citizen has you covered with smart
watch functionality. You get your typical watch functions such as alarm,
calendar, chronograph. You also get the smart watch notifications for call,
texts, email, etc. Then there is the fitness functionality, such as steps,
distance, calories burned, personal goals, sleep, etc. There’s even multimedia
features, such as taking remote photos, music control and volume adjustment.
Citizen has
been innovative in their dress watches with Eco-Drive. The innovation continues
with their smart watches. You get traditional smart watch functionality, but
through Citizen you will have access to additional innovative and unique
functionality. Citizen incorporated technology from NASA and IBM Watson to
create a wellness app proprietary to Citizen called YouQ. YouQ basically over
around 10 days will learn your awake and sleep patterns. Through the apps AI,
the app learns your sleep and awake patterns, and is then able to recommend
“Power Fixes” or activities to increase your alertness and reduce fatigue. This
helps you be more productive. It’s definitely an innovative feature!
Unlike some
products, the owner’s manual was easy to read. It was also easy to follow, and
therefore installation of the app on my smartphone was simple. And so was
pairing the watch to my smartphone, through the app. The Quick Start Guide
walked you through it. If anything, the Quick Start Guide may have been a
little too simple with not much details that some users may need. It worked for
me, and there is the customer service number for those that need assistance.
Now that it’s set up and paired with my smartphone and app, let’s see how it
performs.
Using the
app is very simple. Even on the main page of the app, it shows your step count,
minutes of activity or exercise, calories burned, heart rate, sleep time and
blood oxygen percentage. Tapping on the icons, you can see tracking for each
for day, week and month. Through the app you can also set up alarms, change the
look of your watch face, set-up notifications, as well as set up your
preferences.
Through the
app, you also set up the watch’s functionality. You’ll need to update your
gender, height and age, and weight, so your calorie burning is more accurate.
There’s goal setting for daily steps, active calories, active minutes, and
sleep time. You can even set up what apps connect to it. Thru the app you can
also check that your watch is connected, battery life, and firmware version.
There’s a
lot you can control and monitor from the app, but you will also need to use the
watch itself. To control it you’ll use the three buttons on the right side. And
you’ll really want to download the instruction manual. It goes through not only
all of the features, it also explains the function of each button for each
feature. So downloading and studying the manual is really critical. That way
when you want to check a text, answer a call, or control your music, you’ll
know how.
While these
are all great features, there is one area where I feel like Citizen missed the
mark. That would be with the SPO2 blood oxygen sensor. It measures your blood
oxygen level in a percentage. This is a great tool for sleep apnea. It’s been estimated
that approximately 1 in every 15 Americans suffer from a case of sleep apnea.
That’s just in the US. You figure that globally, and that’s a lot of people.
But only a small percentage get diagnosed. Studies also show that if you have a
close family member with sleep apnea, you are at a higher risk for developing
it.
In the app
under SPO2, it shows and tracks your weekly average for blood oxygen
percentage. It also shows your daily low, high, and average blood oxygen
percentages. This is all great to know, just shy of the mark for sleep apnea.
But Citizen seems really close to being a game changer for sleep apnea. The
watch is clearly able to take the measurements. If Citizen made a change to the
software to show the measurements at the time of the day, it would be more
beneficial. You would be able to tell if any of the low readings were during
your sleep. You would be able to track how often it happens. And if you need to
see medical help for it. The feature works great. But with some tweaks, Citizen
could have a real game changer on their hands that could help literally
millions!
The Citizen
YouQ app is also very innovative. You
start using the app by taking some Alert Checks. You do that a couple times a day for the
first 7-10 days until your chronotype is identified by analyzing your natural
sleep and activity patterns. Once your chronotype is identified, you will see
your energy levels at different times during the day. The app will not only help show you your energy
levels, but also help with energy fixes, ways you can boost your energy. The app actually works well and is pretty
cool. Doing what I do working from home,
it’s not really needed for me. But I can
see that depending on what you do for work, this could be extremely beneficial. It’s definitely worth using, as it could
help. And I haven’t seen anything else
like it before.
I absolutely
love the look of the Citizen CZ Smart Hybrid Gen-2. It has the elegant and
classy look of an analog dress watch with the functionality of smart watch. And
it has the excellent build quality that Citizen is known for. It’s a classic
example of synergy, where the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Now you
can get all dressed up for a night out on the town or wedding with a great
looking Citizen dress watch, and still get the vibration on your wrist so you
don’t miss that important text. Based on its design, features, quality and
performance, the Citizen SZ Smart Hybrid has earned our Editor’s Choice Award.
For more info and complete specs, check out their website at www.citizenwatch.com.
