Citizen - CZ Smart 44mm Stainless Steel Case Hybrid Heart Rate Smartwatch Silicone Strap - Black

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• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  As advertised. Buy with Confidence!

  • Incentivized
  • Verified Purchaser
  • My Best Buy® Member
  • Owned for 1 week

  Nice watch! Happy with it. Feels good and not too heavy while still feeling durable. One charge needed so far. Has great battery life!

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  This review is from Citizen - CZ Smart 44mm Black IP Stainless Steel Case Hybrid Heart Rate Smartwatch with Silicone Strap - Green

  Posted 2 years ago by OzarkC

• Rated 4 out of 5 stars

  Old Meets New

  • Tech Insider Network Member

  The Citizen CZ hybrid is a big step up from its predecessor and is a great way to get in to the smart watch design while stay maintaining the typical analog feel. It offers just about all the amenities you can find in your brand name smart watches while giving you quick access to the current time via analog hands. While this set up does have some very nice features, including a 15 day battery life, it also does have some minor short comings. Out of the box your going to get everything you need to get you started. First thing i noticed during initial set up was the instructions and walk through process was probably hands down one of the worst i have ever seen. You get directed to download the free app to help with set up and receive further instructions, which is pretty much standard now a days. However once the app was downloaded i found that further instructions on how to fully utilize the watch were not found. Through the app you can choose your very basic functions such as which messages you want the watch to display to you. You can enter your profile for your fitness and wellness checker as well as setting backgrounds for your watch and which monitors you choose to have displayed. The preset watch backgrounds are very basic and there are only 4 to choose from. You can however preload a watch face from your own personal picture gallery so that does add so more customization. The app however does fail to give you any other further tips or instructions on how to utilize your watch. For example i spent about 10 minutes just trying to figure out if the watch had a built in light and if so how to get it to come on. After figuring it out on my own i realized that you have to double tap the screen for the light to come on. Also speaking of which i also found that there is no brightness setting or adjustability based on its movement sensors. Meaning you have no option to turn the light on at night with just a flick of the wrist. The only thing flicking your wrist actually does is cause the dials to rotate 360 degrees allowing you to see your active monitors on the face of your watch. It does this in case one of the analog hands is blocking one of your monitors such as your heart rate display for example. The app is more fitness based than anything, allowing you to track your calories, steps, workout, heartrate and sleep pattern. The heartrate tracker seems to actually be pretty accurate and appears to get a reading about every minute. If you sleep with the watch on at night then it will pick up on your sleep patterns letting you know just how much you sleep and what percentage of it was light, deep and awake. At this time there is no other additional health options meaning you can not add water or caffeine intake or log your food or weight. There are firmware updates so maybe in the future more additions will be added. The app will log all those trackers automatically as long as your wearing the watch and will display your readings on a graph type scale showing you how you have been doing through out the month and weeks. If you set new records it will always display it as your best record breaker. For example it will always show the best sleep you got, most calories burned and steps taken in a single day. Your top score will always be displayed for you to try to beat it. Let's talk about the physical portion of the watch for a minute. The three buttons off to the side are your quick access buttons which can be mapped for different uses all via the app. Your options are very limited and as of right now the only options you have to map on them are workouts, wellness, stopwatch, notifications, music, timer, weather, commute time and connect challenge. If you hold the center button down you can gain access to your watches menu items such as vibration intensity, DND settings, notification settings, etc. I am a very big watch guy and im kind of old school and actually prefer an analog style watch. The one nice thing i like i about this set up alot is that the minute you get a text message or phone call the analog hands will move off to the side so this way you can read your incoming notification display without the hands blocking anything. Speaking of phone calls, it will display whos calling and will give you the option to answer the call however you can not talk directly in to the watch. When you hit 'accept call' the only thing it does is answer the phone for you so you still have to physically talk through the phone. The only gripe i have about the buttons is that they are kind of big and can sometimes get in the way of your hand when flexing your wrist, epically the middle button. There have been many times when i have been typing on my keyboard and my wrist will be in the flexed position and will the hit the middle button activating the watch settings. Not too big of a deal but just something to note. The watch syncs to your phone and therefore the time will always be be set properly based on your current location. If you walk away too far from your phone its not a big deal as the time will still display properly and all your health settings such as steps will still be logged however you just wont receive any notifications such as email, text messages, etc. As far as night time display goes as said earlier if you double tap your phone you get the led lights to come on which are very subtle. They are not bright enough to light up a room but they are not too dim to where you cant read your display. The analog dials also have a slight glow to them as well so that you can still read the time without having to turn the watch lights on. I will say the glow is very dim and can be hard to read for those that have vision problems. Overall the watch is a very nice combination of old meeting new. Charge time on a dead battery was about 1 hour and on a full charge i got about 13 days of run time. I have to say the fact that i dont need to charge it every couple days is a very nice feature to have. So if your looking to get in to the smart watch game but dont want to be overwhelmed with all the features then this is a awesome way to go. The analog hands make it look like a traditional watch while the background displays still give you all the features of a smartwatch design. Its sleek design means that its the perfect fit for any occasion rather it be work or a night on the town. This watch for me is my new favorite go to as i like the ability to have the time displayed always while still maintaining my quick access notifications. The long battery life is a huge plus for me and the water resistance features means i dont have to worry about water damaging this watch. I only really have 2 complaints against this watch. One is the fact that i can not adjust the light brightness nor do i have an option to determine how it comes on. And second this watch seems more geared towards fitness and is supposed to have a auto workout feature which can pick up on when you are walking, running, cycling or working out and log those events for you. The watch never picks up on it and you have to always manually tell it that you are working out. Other than that i like this watch alot and think it'll please most people out there.

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  Posted 3 years ago by Crash3r

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Beautiful Timepiece, Smartwatch In Disguise

  • Tech Insider Network Member

  TLDR; Not your typical smartwatch; is not meant to replace your phone when out of reach. But it can aid you during your day giving you custom relevant notifications, and track your health asynchronously. Battery life over two weeks between charges! Citizen design and quality. Real hand movements. Pedometer and heart rate monitor. Water resistant to 3 ATM. Health monitoring and tracking using Citizen Connected App. I must confess…I love this watch. It’s a wristwatch with analog arms, painted number markings and pushers. It has the heft of a 44mm timepiece and is very attractive to look at. The rubber wristband is sturdy, yet comfortable and the overall blue colorway gives it such a sporty, modern look. And coming from a company that has been in the watch game for over 100 years gives me confidence in their workmanship and quality. Hard to say the same about other watches from other manufacturers I've bought in the past that have failed due to poor design; these companies started designing watches in the last 5-7 years. At first or second glance, it does not scream out loud that it is a smartwatch. But a much closer look shows that the face behind the arms is entirely LCD, which can be customized to show various information. It also doubles as a pedometer and even takes your heart rate on demand. With the Citizen Connected app, it automatically records the following: daily steps, activity minutes (think when you’re exercising, it will keep track of that), calories burned (based on your physical profile), heart rate at rest and even how long you sleep (when worn to sleep, of course). The best part is that you don’t have to tinker with it! Just wear it like a watch and go about your day. A lot of smart watches are geared toward personal health and the Citizen really doesn’t disappoint here. As a smartwatch, battery life on this watch is absurdly long, considering today’s standard of smart watches. Citizen claims up to two weeks of run time between charges. When I wore it for about 24 hours straight, the battery went from 100% to 95%. So if you wear it religiously, it's certainly possible to get two weeks out of them before charging. Charging is simple; although not wireless charging, it has a magnet connection that automatically aligns itself to the exposed contacts underneath the watch so there’s no guessing if the charger is correctly aligned. Drilling down into the Connected app (Android or iOS app), each category of health tracking is charted for your entire day, and can be trended for the week and even the month. Also in the app is the ability to configure the face to show information important to you and custom behaviors for the pushers. Navigating through the different menus is a little confusing at first, but it’s at least consistently confusing and eventually it becomes very easy to navigate. Basically, the top and bottom pushers navigate up and down respectively, and the middle pusher is to activate a mode/value/behavior. That’s all there is to it. I’ve updated my watch face to have a camouflage look, with pedometer steps, heart rate and activity minutes tracking shown. When I press the top pusher, it provides weather information. When I use the bottom pusher, it brings me to the stopwatch. Finally, the middle pusher gives me access to the heart rate monitor. Pressing and holding the middle button from any menu takes me back to the main face. The Connected App can be linked to Google Fit and the Apple variant if you prefer to track your health that way. My most favorite feature of the watch is the notifications. Although you can set this watch up to vibrate to pretty much any notification from your phone, I’ve set my watch up to only notify me of text messages and phone calls. Furthermore, I’ve updated it to notify me based on a custom list of people. Text messages can be read in their entirety, but you’ll have to take the text from your phone if you intend to reply. Similarly, phone calls can not be taken straight from the watch and you’ll have to use your phone. And for both situations, that is entirely fine with me. I still find it a bit comical today that folks are still doing these activities straight from their watch. If I had to highlight one con, it’s the inability to really see anything on the watch at night. It does have a face light, activated by double tapping anywhere on the bezel. The light stays on for about 10 seconds, then auto shut off. So if you need more than 10 seconds, you'll have to double tap again. Also worth noting is that all smartwatches will have some level of battery degradation over time. Looking closely at the watch, I can’t see any means of servicing the battery, so it will probably have to be sent in to Citizen. Citizen provides two years warranty on parts and labor. There are many watches to choose from in its price range, but I think this mostly caters to those looking for a simple, set it and forget it like a typical non-smart watch. With its long battery life, I think it's a winner in that regard and still provides core smartwatch functionality both from a notification and health standpoint.

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  This review is from Citizen - CZ Smart 44mm Black IP Stainless Steel Case Hybrid Heart Rate Smartwatch with Silicone Strap - Green

  Posted 3 years ago by softwareEngineer