Customer Ratings & Reviews

Citizen - CZ Smart 45mm Unisex Stainless Steel Sport Smartwatch with Silicone Strap Before I go into my review I would like to post a suggestion: If you are planning on using the CZ Smart YouQ integration with the Citizen Connected app on your Android phone I suggest that you just set up these apps using your Android ID and password otherwise you will have difficulty with the two apps integrating easily. I was kind of surprised that the watch is non water resistant which puts it out of the sports watch area in my opinion. To the degree that it is recommended that you don’t wear the watch when you are washing your hands. There isn’t a quick start quide and you have to learn on the fly by using the apps and taking a guess. There is a small tutorial on the watch to show you swipes and the buttons. It took a week before the sleep app got most of my sleeping routine down instead of taking the middle of the night trip to the bathroom as meaning I was up for the night. It even mostly could tack on my afternoon power nape with a miss on one out of three times. The other YouQ features are spotty at best. Some features look as if they have future integration in mind though I don’t know how the app would track REM sleep. Other than ‘went to bed’ and ‘wake up’ the sleep tracking on the YouQ has been blank even though the same information for light sleep, wake and deep sleep show up correctly on the Citizen Connected app. The heart rate and O2 level look pretty good but sometimes the sensor can be finicky on where it needs to be to get it to read this. I could not get the sensors in the goldilocks zone other than wearing the watch on the underside of my wrist. I tried on both wrists and made sure to change the orientation on the watch but the only way it would work was on the underside of my wrists. The silicon wrist strap was kind of stiff and only made for a decent fit with the watch in this position anyway. I’m not sure what the apps use for steps used but they are extremely inaccurate. My wife who has another brand of smart watch found that it might be attributed to swinging motion. It seems to be pretty accurate if she uses it as an ankle monitor when we go out for our walk. The strap is too short for me to try it in this mode, but it is a possibility. I would have thought it would use the GPS capabilities of my phone to assist in some of the steps traveled but that is a lot more accurate than the results I have seen. I have to be conscious of this position on my wrist so that I don’t damage the face of the watch during certain activities. The alert check is interesting but more of a game to beat the dot to the blinking point and this is on your phone not on the watch. All in all the YouQ app at this stage is more of a gimmick than a viable source of information. I would not buy the watch for these Hyped NASA and IBM Watson features. I may prove better with some updates but at this time it is more of a novelty at this stage. The regular smart watch features seems decent with good integration between the smart watch and the phone. This is typical of the WearOS software. And allows for integration with a lot of other devices. With alerts and phone integration along with Alexa integration if you choose. Some of these features can affect the battery life. I believe I use the watch in a relatively normal manner and experience the need to charge the watch once in the middle of the day and once prior to bed so it doesn’t go into shutdown mode while I sleep. It generally takes about 30 minutes for a full recharge. One thing that it likes to do is reset the always on-screen setting – switching it to ON whenever it thinks I have woken up for the day. The center stem on the watch can act as a quick scroll if that works for how you want to go through instead of swiping N and S. The Bezel is all for show and it is a shame they didn’t make it movable to allow for tracking minutes like a normal bezel time keeper. The faces can be changed and I noticed the first updated added a couple of new faces so I would think over time their may be some more. It is amusing the the watch face on the box cover isn’t one that is available. I don’t mind since I like the digital faces with more information. The watch is good looking and I will be interested in seeing how long the stainless steel holds up to acidic sweat – I often blacken and eat through a lot of stainless steel watches and it is why I usually only have titanium based cases. It would be nice if they had a future model with a titanium case. I have several Citizen standard watches and hope they update this watch in the future. Some of those updates could be handled with software /firmware updates. The conclusion is that purchase this for the smart watch features and at this stage not for the fitness features.

Very nice watch it keeps my steps and my heart rate and I like the looks

In the box is the watch with silicone strap, precautions booklet, quick start guide, warranty information and charge cable. First impression - Right out of the box, I definitely like how the watch is well made but the embezzle on the top doesn’t move - I thought that with the numbers being on top that the embezzle would move. All of the buttons on the sides do function like a normal watch. Battery life - The quick guide states to charge the watch out of the box, which I did but I didn’t seat the watch on the charger properly. Beware, the watch charger is magnetic but you have to make sure it sits properly on the charger. Battery life is not bad, after 48 hours with me taking the watch off to sleep, I still had about 30% left on battery life. Comfort/Toughness - I decided to go with the 45mm for the bigger face and knew eventually I would need to change the silicone strap since I am unable to wear for long periods of time because of the way it reacts with my skin. I was very happy when I was able to fit one of my old watch bands on this watch. Having the watch so far for a little over a week, I feel like it will handle the chaos that I am about to put it through since I am pretty rough with watches but I am nervous about the big screen. All of my old watches have dings and scratches, so I am hoping that this one will do okay. Connectivity/Apps/Notifications - While charging the watch, the quick guide states to keep the watch charging while pairing and setup; also, make sure you are have Wi-Fi access. Setup was easy, scan the QR code from the watch to your phone (Android). Out of the box, the watch worked pretty good. I was able to use the watch, get notifications, battery life was not bad. I did notice that the watch did an update and then the watch started acting weird ever since. The issue that makes the watch quirky is what I am guessing is accessibility feature. When this is turned on, the watch operates slower and it makes the watch lock up. I am guessing it is this feature because it voices what screen you are in and what buttons you are pushing but it locks up the watch if you push buttons too fast. Health - There is a health section that connects to Google. I don’t normally use this part of the watch but I did happen to look at the steps at the end of the day and it said I only took 4 steps all day. There are other health features that are listed like the blood oxygen, resting heart rate, exercise and sleep. Overall, if you are a previous owner of smartwatch, I would not recommend this watch because you will get frustrated with a lot of the things that you will not be able to do with the watch. I will say that the watch design is great and some features do work but overall, I wouldn’t purchase for myself. Would I recommend to friends and family? Until there is a major update overhaul, probably not.

This is my first smart watch not from Samsung. Citizen has managed to bring a solidly built watch with a premium feel. The CZ has heft to it without being heavy or overbearing. That being said, I have several gripes with my first nonSamsung watch. I will start with the battery life. I never thought the battery life on the samsung watches were stellar and have never been able to get anything close to the rated times unless the watch was used with everything turned off and only used as a watch an nothing more. The CZ with the always on display on, with tilt to wake activated without any health monitoring will barely last me 12 hours. Turn everything off and only have tap to wake will get me through the day with about 50% juice left. I have settled on using the watch with the always on display activated, touch to wake with no health monitoring functions and it seems to get me through the day without much worry. Start playing with faces or other functions and I will probably not make it through the end off the work day. Along the lines of charging the battery, the CZ uses a proprietary charger with pins that need to align (magnetically) with metal rings on the backside. Just hover the watch over the charging disk and it will find where it needs to go. However, this has interrupted the flow of charging devices I have set up in my charging stations at home and at work. The CZ cannot charge using standard Qi charging pads, I have had issues with older watches that had copper contact points corroding over time due to sweat. At this point I don't know how the contact points will hold up on the CZ as they appear to be stainless steel. Though the charger seems to charge the watch fairly quickly. Another thing I noticed about the CZ that I was not too thrilled about is the lag in the software. I can't tell if it's the CZ or Android Wear, but I first noticed from the unlock screen, the way the pattern tracks my finger there seems to be a second delay sometimes causing problems when trying to unlock the watch but usually because it distracts me as I'm swiping my finger. Even having the watch wake up after being unlocked seems to have a delay. Notifications have a delay from showing what I am being alerted to and the watch screen will not turn on for a few seconds before I can see what notification is coming in. This could very well be a an Android issue as I see it on my Galaxy watches as well. Lastly... what's up with NO water resistant rating?? This is marketed as a "Sport Smartwatch". I don't even know if it will hold up to getting splashed while washing dishes. I always have a watch on and in the summer with a young child there is a high probability we will be somewhere near water on a weekly basis. The CZ can't be a daily driver with that point. Those are really the biggest negatives of the watch for me. I like the physical buttons and they can be programmed to launch different things. The center dial is fairly response and smooth turning. I would've liked to see a rotating bezel, even if it didn't have a software function. The strap is chunky but nice and comfortable it does tend to pick up lints but wipes off easily enough. I would have liked to seen some more classic Citizen watch faces baked in and don't have high hopes that Citizen will be pumping out more faces for a watch now on the market. Prove me wrong Citizen. But there is no shortage of watch faces in the Play Store. I will probably stick with my Galaxy Watch 5 for my daily driver, but will be a definite option for "suiting up" to go out somewhere nice unless I go analog mechanical. I have used wearables for a while now and still haven't found the perfect watch but the Citizen CZ is a sharp looking watch. I hope Citizen will do something to improve on what they have to become a player in the tech wearable space because I've always liked their analog watches.

Was sent this Citizen CZ Smart Unisex Stainless Steel Sport Smartwatch to test and review and I was initially excited to try it out. Unboxing: The nicely styled box held the watch, charger (magnetic,) and two pamphlets - Quick Start Guide and Legal statements. I got the version with the silicone strap, mainly because I have a larger wrist and some of the metal bands just do not fit. In this case, the silicone strap just barely fit, on the last 'hole' of the band. I proceeded to place the watch on the charger and read the Quick Start Guide. All of two pages, which told you to charge the watch for initial use, download the Citizen app on my phone, and how to use the Pulse Ox (SPO2) sensor. That's it. The Citizen Connected app was slightly more helpful, as it walked you through connecting the watch to the phone/app and allowed you to configure what face and 'tiles' you wanted to use. At the bottom of the app screen, it shows your "Wellness" stats - Steps, Active Minutes, Calories Burned, Heart Rate, and Sleep stats. Setting up the watch itself is a matter of 'poke and hope' after the initial Language and Time/Date settings. Fun to play around with, but not the most intuitive. See the three 'buttons' on the side of the watch? Nowhere does the 'documentation' tell you what their primary functions are. You need to 'play around' to figure them out. The watch itself is big and has a good heft to it. Stainless steel does that! Online description of the watch promotes 24+ hours on a single charge. I have yet to get more than about 18 hours out of it and I do not have a lot of the 'bells and whistles' activated on it. You cannot wear this watch 24/7, so if you want to track Sleep, you will need to either charge the watch before bed or right after waking up. I have had other fitness bands that gave me almost everything this watch does, but had MUCH better battery life - days instead of hours. Pros: Looks great. Many faces to choose from. Has some interesting/fun apps installed. Cons: Battery life. Non-intuitive interface. May be a little large and/or heavy for some to wear for extended periods of time.

I have been wearing the Citizen - CZ Smart 45mm Unisex Stainless Steel Sport Smartwatch with Silicone Strap in Black & Silver for several days now. Here are my first impressions. The Citizen (P991 MX1011-05X) CZ Smart Sport Touchscreen watch is a handsome looking watch that is sporty and yet looks very serious with an attractive non-functioning black knurled bezel with 60 minute markings (with the 0/60 at the top) that does not rotate. But it does look cool if you do not need functional bezel capability. The synthetic black strap looks nice and is functional if a bit stiff. The total weight is comfortable. The case thickness is thin enough to not be a hindrance and is an attractive and rugged stainless steel. This Citizen watch has sensors for - Gyroscope, altimeter, barometer, accelerometer, heart rate sensor, SP02, and an ambient light sensor according to their documentation. IBM Watson® and NASA's Ames Research Center, AI enhanced algorithms, learns your YouQ to deliver a daily forecast and an hourly Power Score which is a highly personalized indicator of your cognitive and physical energy.‌ It uses Wear OS by Google™ and should be upgraded to the 3.0 operating system by the end of 2023 and is compatible with both iPhone® and Android™ phones. The screen brightness is not as bright as I would like unless boosted close to maximum. Watch faces are few and not as good looking nor as functional as their non-smartwatch brethren. It is not water resistant. Final take - It will provide what they say and it is attractive.

GOOD - Lots of functionality on your wrist - All system and app notifications forwarded to watch - Crown buttons can be customized for different functions - Watch acts as Bluetooth headset for answering phone calls - Can reply to texts directly from watch - Tons of third-party applications can be installed - Display can be rotated for the crown buttons facing in or out, right or left wrists - Uses standard 22mm bands BAD - Not water resistant - Non-existent documentation - Won't automatically turn off notifications during sleep - Inconsistent apps and configuration performance - Poor battery life - Stock strap is stiff and bulky - Diving/timer bezel doesn't rotate and is just for looks TLDR Though Citizen may be well-respected for their normal time pieces, the second-gen CZ Smart is still not a mature product. Battery life is only 30 hours and the watch has no water resistance at all. It will display all your phone notifications available on your wrist and the watch can install most applications from the Google Store. But configuring the watch to your liking is rather difficult due to a lack of proper documentation and the watch seeming to forget its own settings. DETAILS While I've had many wrist fitness trackers, some with quite advanced smart functions, this is my first true smart watch, and I'm more than a little disappointed in it. Physically, the watch is great. Construction is great, the display looks beautiful, and you can customize the three crown buttons. The watch can be set to respond to right- and left-hand movement and the screen can be rotated to have the crown buttons facing in or out. However the outer diving/timer ring is only for looks and doesn't rotate. Apart from losing a simple timer function, this also means if you want to wear the watch on your right wrist with the buttons on the left side, the outer ring will be upside down. The included sport band is quite robust, but also very thick and stiff. I found it quite uncomfortable with my thick wrists as it wouldn't contour to them easily and kept pinching in. It's also so thick I had trouble fitting it, along with the sizable bezel, under my dress shirt cuffs. Luckily it uses standard 22mm straps so replacing it isn't an issue. The CZ Smart is also available with other stock bands, so you can skip the sport band altogether if you want. It takes a little time to adjust your mindset that the watch isn't supposed to be just another interface to your phone, it functions as a standalone device in partnership with your phone. It doesn't just connect to your phone over Bluetooth, the watch has its own Wi-Fi radio and can connect to the Google Play Store to download and install applications. These then are supposed to work in conjunction with the apps on your phone, but the CZ Smart seems to forget which apps are installed and which you've already set up. The watch will buzz and show an incoming text message. You can mark it as read and even reply to it with a keyboard on the watch. But if you try to go to the text message app from the watch's home screen, it will prompt you to open the app on your phone. If you tap that button, it won't open messages on the phone, it instead takes you to the app page in the Google Store. Similar inconsistent behavior happens with other apps on the watch, but not all of them. Using the phone app is as expected where you can browse contacts, see recent calls, and start a new one. Being able to use the watch as a Bluetooth headset to make calls is one of the better features it has. Perhaps the most annoying thing about this "forgetfulness" is the watch doesn't consistently shift into different battery and notification modes, such as at night while sleeping. The Citizen Companion app allows you to set what it calls Daily and Extended battery modes, along with what sensors, functions, and radios are active in each mode and the time of day the watch should switch from one to the other. So you have most the things on during the day then have it automatically shift over to lower power consumption while you sleep. Except, that doesn't seem to happen. For whatever reason, the watch will turn on at odd times in the night. Either the face lights up, or worse, it will beep as a notification goes off. Even if your phone is set to Do Not Disturb, the CZ Smart will not mirror that setting. This isn't just a hassle when you're sleeping, but also if you have your phone set to automatically suppress notifications during meetings and appointments. Not only does this wake you up at times, but it also drains the limited battery faster. Battery life on the CZ Smart is one of its bigger problems. Using it on stock settings out of the box will get you maybe 12 hours. The biggest power draw is the watch face, which is set to always stay on by default. Turning this off, so the time is only displayed when you raise your wrist, almost doubles the battery life. Setting the watch manually into extended mode and Do Not Disturb when going to sleep should easily make it the rest of the way to 24 hours. Doing this, the battery would be around 35% each morning when I woke. Put it on the charger while you get ready in the morning and it's back to 100% within an hour. However if you enable all the health tracking features and use the watch for a lot of phone calls or timers, it's not hard to find the battery nearly dead in the morning. Perhaps I'm not using the settings and battery saving features correctly, but it's hard to tell because the documentation may as well not be there. The watch has a few very brief tutorials, but finding the ins and outs of the companion app, the settings, and syncing with your phone is a nightmare. You have to search and sift through FAQs and support site help questions to find much of anything, and even that isn't very much. Normally a 24-hour battery isn't a big deal for me as I've been used to charging my wearables each morning while I shower and eat. And with the CZ Smart, that's even more important because this thing has no water resistance at all. The manual specifically states that it's not even splash resistant ( one of the few things it does cover ). I don't need every smart watch and tracker to be 300m diving capable, not even something that can go in the lap pool, but I do like them to be able to withstand heavy rain or incidental splashes while I'm washing my hands. Having no water resistance at all is a deal breaker for me, especially when I'm paying this much money. The CZ Smart is quite frustrating because it has so much potential. Apart from the water resistance, nearly every problem with it could be fixed in software. Maybe over time, with newer firmware, it gets better, but as of now, at this price, this isn't something I'd recommend to anyone.

So I have had numerous smart watches. When I saw Citizen was now in the smartwatch game, I had to give this one a try. As far as feel and design, it checks all the boxes. It feels sturdy and has an excellent design. The screen is large and has a beautiful display. The watch band while silicone, is the strongest I have come across. Overall the look of the watch has a good balance of sport and elegant so it can be worn for any type of occasion. Software had no issues. It covers everything you want in a smartwatch. Covers pulse, sleep, heart rate, gps just to name a few. It is google based so for personal preference, it is just exactly what I needed. As far as drawbacks, two immediately came to the forefront. This watch is not water resistant. It is rated for some water resistance but to play it safe keep it away from water. The other improvement would be better battery life. The first couple of charges I couldnt get 24 hours out of it. I have made a few adjustments and it has improved minimally but hopefully can be a future improvement or software update. I was required to do 2 updates out of the box. This isn't an issue but just a reminder. This is definitely a stong competitive release by Citizen to compete with the rivals and I would recommend it.

I'm really unsure how a watch with this many problems made it to production. Citizen is offering this watch as a fully branded Citizen product and, supposedly, as a sports smartwatch to compete with established smartwatch brands. As a Citizen product, it has an attractive default face but, as of my writing this, there are only a few face styles available and they mostly range from unimaginative to tacky. But all of the faces show the Citizen logo in its recognizable font. The watch, itself, is pretty hefty (but I think that's the trend now for watches - especially sports smartwatches). It looks natural on my wrist, but I'm a big guy - but since it is described as "Unisex," I would recommend that anyone who is petite might want to try this on before considering a purchase. I found that the initial setup and the navigation in general (both on the watch and in the associated application) are terribly unintuitive. Seriously, the navigation seems almost intentionally confusing. And I did not like the default settings for the watch and found that it needed a lot of additional setup for it to feel useful on my arm. For my own use, I had to disable the lock screen on my watch because the numerical key-in for my PIN was so small that I always had problems unlocking the watch with my large fingers. And there was a strange delay between the visual acceptance of an entry and the haptic response to that entry - like two unrelated things were going on. In fact, I find there to be an annoyingly long delay between all phone phenomena (notifications, calls, etc.) and the associated alerts on the watch - and the haptic response always feels out-of-synch. Surely the most important functionality for any sport smartwatch would be step counts. Even the cheapest fitness trackers (and my smartphone) can do an admirable job at this. But I have two gripes with this Citizen: I found the step counts to be VERY conservative relative to what my phone registers and to what an old Fitbit registers (easily counting 25% fewer steps regardless of activity), and for some unknown reason whenever I synch the watch with the application the number of steps is NEVER consistent between the two (and, oddly enough, the watch is the one that is not showing the full count!). The battery life for this watch is abysmal. It should not be asking too much for the watch to last 24 hours between charges with reasonably full functionality. The watch will drop to reduced functionality to prevent full battery discharge before charging, but I have noticed that some of the reduced functions need to be re-initialized in settings to start up again (e.g. tilt-to-wake). And charging takes longer than I would like - I tend to charge the watch in the morning between waking and leaving for work and that is not always enough time to get back to 100%. My last gripe is my biggest gripe - I can't believe they are even suggesting this is a sports watch much less marketing it as such. The precautions that come with this watch state that this watch is NON-water-resistant. It is not intended for ANY water-related use - even minor exposure to water (washing face, rain, etc.) ... definitely not swimming and general washing work, diving, etc. The only water hazard not listed is sweating. This is NOT Citizen's first issuance of a smartwatch. They should have covered all of these problems before this watch came anywhere close to market. Buyers beware.

I've been wearing "smart" watches since the days that calculators (and later IR remotes) were the hottest tech you could strap to your wrist. When Android Wear came out, of course I was one of the first in line to rock one of the first models, the one with the "flat tire" display. Everyone expected these to be just like smartphones on your wrist without realizing the limitations of the smartwatch as a platform, including the tiny screen and even tinier batteries, and even less mindful of the fact that the phone part of the smartphone was often the most overlooked. These limitations have caused evolutions in both the software and our expectations of what a smartwatch is even supposed to be. And after having owned several generations and design iterations, even swapping to a fitness band when I couldn't find a smartwatch that I liked, I've found that what I want is for a smartwatch to be a watch first and foremost. And it is on that point that the Citizen CZ Smart really delivers. Out of the box performance was spotty, and I wasn't sure if I was going to like the watch. Animations seemed sluggish and attempting to try any of the features like the oxygen sensor or even getting the weather resulted in spinning circles. However there was an update available within minutes. After a restart, and letting the watch get all its downloads and gather all its data, performance greatly improved. It did take several hours, maybe even overnight, and during this time the battery drained rather quickly, which concerned me as I found myself having to charge the watch every few hours. Again, once the watch went through the break-in period, over the next several days I found that the battery life was also improved. The way I have my watch set up, with the always-on display set to on, screen timeout set to 10 seconds, tilt-to-wake off, and touch-to-wake on, it performs admirably as an actual watch. I can glance at my wrist and check the time, no waiting for it to react to my gesture to activate the display or pressing a button or anything like that. Instead of a fancy watch face with all the complications like step-counter or average heart-beat, there's always a minimal yet stylish version being displayed. With a tap, I can activate the fancy version to see the extra stuff (like the second hand or the international clock), and with a swipe I can go through the various tiles from Wear OS like the weather forecast or the phone dialer. But until I activate the special features, for all intents and purposes, I am wearing a nice looking watch. My watch came with a black silicone band. My wrists are on the smaller end, so I had to use the second to the last hole. While the band had a stylish design, and the material kept the watch in place on my wrist without sliding around, I found that the matte texture of the silicone was a magnet for all sorts of dust and especially cat hair. I hardly wore the watch for five minutes when my curious cat jumped in my lap, demanding that I pay attention to her instead of my newest gadget. After petting her a few times to appease her so that I could push her off without feeling guilty, the band of the watch was absolutely covered in cat hair. I tried to rub off as much as I could, but I have dry skin, so then there was a thin layer of freshly shed flakes stuck to the band. It wiped clean with a damp cloth easily enough, but it wasn't long before it was attracting more dust and lint. Fortunately, the watch is compatible with any 22mm band, and the silicone band that comes with it is of the quick-release variety, making it simple to swap out for an all metal or leather band. Coming from a fitness band that I had to charge once a week, I was hesitant about dipping a toe back into the smartwatch waters, especially a smartwatch that wasn't waterproof. But then again, my fancier actual watches aren't waterproof either, and that's the mindset I had to be in. And as for battery life, I found that if I set my watch on the charger after dinner, around 7 or 8 pm, it'll be charged to full well before bed time (the promotional material says charges completely in about 40 minutes). I'll wake up to about 80%, and am at around 30% after I get home from work. Of course, if I want to give it a top-off in the morning while I'm taking a shower, it'll absolutely be full by the time I'm ready to leave for work. This suits me just fine. With how fast it charges, setting it down for a few minutes for a top-up while I do things like cook dinner where I don't want things splashed on my watch anyways is not a hard ask. Of course, by turning certain functions off, like the always-on display, or dimming the brightness, I could extend the battery life, but again, I want to lift my wrist and see the time instantly, otherwise I wouldn't be wearing a watch. On the smart side, I also like what Wear OS has become. I'm not trying to turn my watch into a Swiss Army knife with every app imaginable, and I don't care for goofy novelty watch faces anymore. I prefer my watch to be a watch first, the OS should supplement, not replace the functionality of wearing a watch. The apps and extra stuff like notifications and answering phone calls are still absolutely awesome, make no mistake, but at this point I sort of expect them to work properly. This is definitely a fashionable watch first and foremost, and I'm on board for it, and the fact that it does the other stuff while still looking and performing exactly like I expect a watch should has brought me back into the fold.

I’m using this watch with an iPhone and knew going into it that I would have some reduced functionality because of that. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that it hasn’t been as bad as I’d anticipated. The standout issues for me are inconveniences more than deal-breakers. For instance, I don’t receive text notifications for Apple’s native messaging app. I do get notifications from Telegram, and I can read the message I received, but I can’t respond from the watch. The Citizen Connected app has to stay open on my phone and my phone has to be within Bluetooth range in order to receive notifications for anything other than the basic watch apps (alarms, workout information, etc.). This causes a bit more battery drain than normal, but I’m not a heavy phone user so it’s not enough to impact my ability to go all day on a single charge. I also can’t figure out how to change the temp from C to F. I’ve selected the F option everywhere it’s possible to select, I even deleted the app and did a full reset on the watch to start over from scratch in hopes of getting it to work but I’m still sitting here wondering if 31 C is too hot for a long sleeve shirt. Again, I expected using this with an iOS device would be a different experience than using an Apple Watch. I discovered that the things I like about this watch made the switch worth it. First of all, it looks like a watch. I love the fact that it is round and has an outer bezel ring (immovable, but at least it’s there). It also has a feature where you can keep the time on the screen even when you aren’t looking at it, so it always looks like a watch. Most people don’t even realize it’s a smart watch until I start doing something on the screen. You can disable this feature to extend battery life if you find it necessary, but I found that charging it nightly was enough to give me a full day of use. On the topic of battery life, forgot to charge it one of the first nights I had it, and didn’t realize it until I was already at work. I learned that it reserves enough power to still tell the time when you depress the crown even when nothing else works, which I thought was a very nice feature. It also has functional buttons on the side, just like a pre-smartwatch chronograph would. The exercise tracking app, making & receiving calls, music controls, etc. all work as well as any other smartwatch and the app allows you to select from a variety of watch faces and complications you want on each of them. It syncs with your calendar and has a sleep tracking feature. Overall, this feels like a watch with additional functionality instead of feeling like a tiny tablet that happens to tell time.

I have several smart watches that I switch back and forth with. Each has its own unique characteristics and depending on mood or need I pick the one I want to wear that day. Out of the box the watch is very stylish. You can feel the quality of the build. I’m not a big fan of the silicone band included with the watch. For me it was a bit stiff and had a sharp edge which became uncomfortable during the day. I ended up purchasing another sport band online that has a more rounded edge increasing the comfort. I already own the Citizen Hybrid Smart watch so I already had the Citizen Apple App on my iPhone. Pairing was easy enough by simply selecting add a new watch in the app. Once paired you can fine tune the watch features through the app which I found it much easier than trying to do it on the watch itself. I did have some issues with the watch out of the gate and contacted tech support and they promptly replied with tips on how to get the watch to behave as selected and also increase battery life. You can select a simplified watch face as always on or there are a multitude of faces you can download. I went with a more traditional analog watch look and set my watch to display on a wrist tilt but you can also set it so the watch face will display on a tap of the screen or a push of the main stem. After optimizing settings and then fine tuning to my taste the watch is performing flawlessly. I’d recommend this if it’s in your budget. There are less expensive options but there are also much more expensive options. This falls right in the middle from a trusted quality watch manufacturer.

The Citizen - CZ Smart 45mm Unisex Stainless Steel Sport Smartwatch with Silicone Strap - Silver is an amazing piece of technology that has quickly become my go-to smartwatch for all my fitness and wellness needs. The design is sleek and modern, making it a great accessory for any outfit. The watch is incredibly light and comfortable to wear all day. The proprietary wellness app, YouQ, is built using research by NASA Ames Center and AI Models with IBM Watson Studio. It helps me maximize my daily potential by learning my unique Chronotype and daily rhythms and computes HR, SP02, fitness activity and sleep. This has helped me stay on top of my fitness goals and improve my overall health. The watch face is customizable, allowing me to choose from a variety of watch faces to fit my style. The silicone strap is durable and comfortable to wear during workouts. The watch also has water resistance, making it perfect so I don't have to worry about it getting wet. Overall, I highly recommend the Citizen - CZ Smart 45mm Unisex Stainless Steel Sport Smartwatch with Silicone Strap - Silver to anyone who wants to improve their fitness and wellness routine while keeping up with the latest smartwatch technology.