Customer Ratings & Reviews

Summary: If you are in the market for a smart watch, own an android based phone, or want a circular face watch, the Citizen CZ smart will fit the bill. It delivers on price and function. Appearance is a matter of taste, but for me was big and clunky. And if you use IOS, you might want to compare your options carefully. Pros -Classic round watch look -android and IOS based -'standard' smart and fitness features -customizable -decent GPS -reasonable battery life, better than standard apple -easy set up. -Built to last. -Bright and clear screen Cons -large and heavy, 'clunky' -another non standard charging connection -not overly intuitive, fairly steep learning curve. -On watch Apps felt laggy. Detail: I am going to address the elephant in the room directly so you know my bias. My daily driver is an Apple Watch but I missed a round faced watch. I also own the Apple Watch Ultra. I found setup of the Citizen CZ Smart Gen 2 touchscreen to be 'easy.' Like all smart technology it's not turn on and use, you do need to download an App to your phone, pair it via blue tooth, but the watch software guides you through the process and only took a few minutes. Getting to the watch Apps reliably was a learning curve. There are three buttons which sounds like a good thing until you try to figure out which one to use when. But once I mastered that, I found all the standard fitness Apps and of course there is the whole universe of Google Play Apps available. So that's a plus. I did find the apps to be a tad sluggish, taking time to move from one to the other. but on the positive side it was very customizable. The provided apps were optimized for the round face, but it is hard to beat the total amount of information that can be presented on a square face. Even more subjective, I was surprised by how big and heavy this steel watch felt on my wrist. The fit and finish was very angular (for a round watch) and felt 'unpolished.' But maybe 'Rugged' is what you are looking for. Speaking of rugged, given its larger profile I found myself hitting it on doors etc move than I was used to. It survived those well, a testimony to how it can last. I was also pleasantly surprised that it could handle two days of use before needing to be recharged. I am used to charging my Apple Watch each night, though admittedly the Ultra is better. The screen was bright and clear. All in all I think the Citizen CZ smart watch to be worth considering especially in the Android world. The smarts are there, but you will spend time learning to use them. It is decently built, though a bit heavy for my tastes. This isn't going to replace my daily driver, but I will wear it on those occasions I want to stand out from the crowd.

This product has more pros than cons. Pros - Expensive appearance and sleek design. Looks great! - Customizable watch face - Customizable bands - App is user-friendly - WiFi capabilities - Provides several useful apps, but isn't overloaded with them at start-up - Has Theater Mode which turns off screen and screen wake gestures and silences alerts. - Has Do Not Disturb mode which just silences the watch. I use this one frequently when I'm about to go into a meeting. - Has Find My Phone which will allow you to call your phone from your watch to find it. I've had to use this one a couple of times. Works well. - Has multiple screen display options Cons - The buttons and gestures take a while to get used to. - There is a little bit of a learning curve when connecting to apps from your phone. I was very confused why it was telling me that I needed to use a different text messenger app than my Samsung messenger. I thought for the longest time that I wouldn't be able to use Samsung messenger but then the next day, it worked just fine. I haven't had issues with it since. - I can see notifications for certain apps like Facebook Messenger but can't read or reply. - It's large. This is the smaller version of their watch and it feel huge to me. I have a small wrist so I had to remove about 6 links on the band. - The battery doesn't last as long as I would like. I take it off the charger when I leave for work at 7am and by 7pm it's down to 30%. Not terrible, but some days I will be out until 9 or 10pm and I don't think it would last on one charge. Luckily there are notifications that will alert you and ask you to switch to a different battery mode, but it would be great if it could keep up longer than 12 hours.

The Citizen Watch company has been around for over a hundred years so they know what they are doing in the watch industry. Just recently they waded into the smart watch category and I had mixed results with this device. Pros: - They really make a beautiful watch. If you want the functionality of a smart watch / fitness tracker but prefer the style of traditional watches, this is for you. - The band size is adjustable and just requires a little fine tool work. - I liked the personalization options for the display that were available and easily found a preferred set-up that provided all the key data points that I care about. - Charging was quick and painless, taking ~30 minutes to get a full charge. Cons: - Set-up took longer than I would like and did not go smoothly at first. - With Citizen not having the longest track record with smart watches, I'm hoping that we will see improvements with the app/software/firmware over time. While the features were functional, they felt clunky at times. This watch is not perfect, but if you appreciate the look and feel of a high quality watch and also want to have the features of a smart watch / fitness tracker, this is probably the best option on the market right now.

The Citizen CZ Smart watch (2nd Gen.) is a decent smart watch for those that aren't using the watch for fitness purposes. Let me explain... After using the watch for a week now, I've yet to receive any reliable step count from the watch. That's right--no steps. Occasionally, it'll start reading some steps and then stop shortly after. I've updated both the watch software, the watch OS, my phone's software, and all the applicable apps and permissions. I have no idea what is causing the watch to not track my steps, but that is a major deal-breaker for me. It does read my HR though, so that's good. The watch also isn't water resistant (per manufacturer), so I was afraid to exercise with it for fear that the sweat might damage the watch. And my final reason why this isn't for fitness tracking is kind of bitter-sweet: This watch is too darn good-looking to be exposed to the rigors of your HIIT routine! Speaking of something good: The watch is supremely well-built. Very heavy, but not in a bulky way. It just feels dense and really solid. This is the kind of craftsmanship I'd expect from a company like Citizen. My watch came with a black steel watch band, and even that is well-built. Cheers, Citizen! The watch connected to my phone via the Citizen app without much to-do, but do note that Citizen wants you to use their app rather than Google's WearOS app. I was able to install various apps and watch faces on my watch without much issue. With that being said, I feel like that's where the strength of this watch lies: In the apps and 'other' smart functionality. You can really take advantage of all that Google's WearOS has to offer with this watch. Smart home stuff, weather reports, notifications from your phone, 3rd party health sensors (glucose monitoring, anyone?), even email...right from your wrist. It may not be a fitness watch, but it still has purpose! Battery life has been about what you'd expect for a WearOS watch: One day, plus or minus a few hours. I wore the watch all day and night, and charged it for 30 or so minutes while I showered and got ready. That kept me from having any battery issues throughout my testing. Score! I turned off the Alway On Display in lieu of the Flip Wrist to Turn On, and I'd say that worked about 85-90% of the time (again, very on-par for WearOS watches). My personal opinion of this watch is that it's a really nice piece of wristwear...something to show off and be proud of...something to wear during a nice night out maybe. But not being waterproof and not reliably tracking steps really makes this a hard-sell for a fitness tracker.

My 36-year-old daughter was the initial user of this watch. She is a regular jogger, and the comments that follow are largely hers. Style-wise, the watch face is great for a large women's watch or medium men's watch. I prefer at least a 38mm face so this size of 41 is perfect. I'm a female with about a 7" wrist circumference, and I needed to have five links removed by a local jewler to wear it. The steel band is very lightweight. I wore it working at the computer all day, and it wasn't cumbersome or annoying. It also didn't seem to get much dirt stuck to it and was extremely easy to clean with an eyeglass cloth. The watch face is changeable with the phone’s app. I also wore it to do yardwork and exercise, and I do not think this watch will be easy to bang up. I do plan to get a silicone band to use for those activities in the future. The watch connected to my phone easily, though it did often disconnect when it was charging or when I took it off at bedtime. It reconnects pretty quickly, though. One problem I had was that, a day after setting it up, it completely forgot my phone. That hasn't happened more than once though, and it isn't too much trouble to reconnect. The phone app is easy to use and uncomplicated. The watch interface took a minute to get used to, but that was mainly because I've never used a smart watch before. Once you've gotten used to it, it's pretty easy to navigate, and the touch screen is not too sensitive. The wellness measurements are nice, but I will get more use out of them once I get a silicone band. They were easy to set up, though you do need to have the watch sit on a more exact part of your wrist in order for it to get accurate measurements. The watch did not come with too many apps, which I appreciate because I didn't have to spend time deleting things. It has my favorite workout and music apps. However, you do need a paid Spotify or Youtube Music subscription in order to listen to music on it. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the sound when I listen to music. It's better than my phone, and there were no connection issues with my headphones. Making a phone call using the watch was also very straightforward. It functioned exactly like the phone, and the sound was clear. The person on the other end had no idea I was using a watch. As noted above, one issue with the watch that prevented me from using it right out of the box is that the band is metal and has links which must be removed or added if it needs adjustment to fit your wrist. I had to take the watch to a jeweler and have five links removed so that it would fit my wrist, and the particular jeweler I went to kept it for two days because they could not work on it right when I brought it in. So it was two days after initially opening the box before I could actually use the watch. As I said above, I plan to replace the metal-link band with a flexible band with a pin and holes so that it can be adjusted to size much more conveniently.

This isn't my first smartwatch. I had one a couple years ago and I got used to wearing it. It was cool, but after a year, the battery went bad. Since then I wasn't really interested in another smartwatch. I had my fitbit and I am also used to wearing nice watches. The reason I decided to try this watch was that it did not look like your typical smart watch. The setup wasn't as smooth as it should have been. Trying to pair using the app didn't really work, I had no idea if the watch was pairing or not. Using the app to customze the watch was very underwhelming, not too many watch faces to choose from and hardly any colors. It's a shame because the watch itself looks very nice on my wrist. The touchscreen was a bit tricky to use and I'm still getting used to it. It made reading notificiations and texts very tricky. I didn't even bother trying to make any phone calls with this. There is plenty room for improvement here. The battery life was average. I'm not really blown away by this smartwatch, it feels weird to wear in the gym for a workout. This watch can only be worn if you're going out and you still want fitness tracking. I would rather get a discreet fitness tracker and wear one of my nice dumb watches.

The CZ Smart Watch is comfortable and light, however, the band that came with it is more for a man’s wrist than a woman’s. I’d have to take it to a jeweler to have the band shortened or buy a smaller band. That’s what I did. I purchased a nylon adjustable stretch band and now it is fine. The CZ Smart Watch Touchscreen comes in a nice box that’s also in a sleeve. The box includes the watch, metal clip band (the size is more for men than women), quick start guide, charging cable and safety guide. To get started, you have to download the Citizen Connect App for either iOS or Android. Once downloaded follow the instructions, both on the Watch and the App to connect. I tried to connect to my Google Wearable OS, but unfortunately the CZ Smart watch isn’t compatible with it. The operating system of the watch is too new for the Wearable OS app. The charger is a USB-A with a round charger. The charger has to be in exactly the right spot on the back of the watch to charge correctly. The CZ Smart Watch keeps the charge very well. I wore it for almost 2 days, and it was still at 40% charge. To add different watch faces to the CZ Smart Watch, you have to it through the watch itself. There are many different faces both free as well as to purchase. I do wish the Connect App had the ability to change the watch faces. It would be easier as well as you can see the face in more detail. The CZ Smart Watch would be better if the functions and/or apps were available through the Citizen Connect App rather than having to hunt for them in the watch settings. I will only recommend it if the user doesn’t mind hunting through the watch settings to change faces and add apps.

Brilliance in a box, from the time you take this watch out of the box to placing it on your wrist. Citizen watches have always had a nice unique look and feel them, including their line of Smartwatches. As a part of the setup, there is an accompanying app that should be installed on your mobile device, CZ Smart. The app is very user friendly, while being seamless during setup and allowing the various permission on your mobile device needed for the app to work successfully. It does take a few days for the app to learn from your wear and use. Battery times will vary pending initial setup and how often you interact with the watch. Overall, found the watch to last about 1.5 days when was not playing with it throughout the day. Charging is done via a contact charger dock, please the watch directly on top and the screen annotates the watch is now charging. Display is nice and crisp, having the classic watch look and feel with a digital touchpoint. The watch itself, does not have a lot of weight to it and is comfortable to wear throughout the day.

I really wanted this watch to be everything that it was hyped up to be. Straight out of the box I had a one-word reaction: heavy. It is a bulky watch that does not align with what I expect from a smart watch. Moving on, I read up on the device, downloaded the app on my Android phone, and did the usual setup. The menu navigation is fairly straight forward - I like the touch screen and the ability to use buttons to navigate and scroll. But I really struggled to get this device connected, configured, and running. And that is saying something as I am constantly dabbling with the latest in technology. I have a hard time with the basics, like setting screen brightness, which seems to revert each time to an auto setting - which is not bright enough for my liking. I see the potential in the health app, but basics like displaying the number of steps taken appears on the app while not appearing on the watch. So, I did a factory reset, which led to further challenges. I cannot recommend this one.

The Citizen - CZ Smart 41mm Unisex Stainless Steel Casual Smartwatch with IP Stainless Steel Bracelet – Black caused me a minor disappointment at first. After installing the Citizen Connected app on my Motorola Moto G phone, I could not get the watch and phone to pair. Several days consisted of me trying to figure out why I could see the Citizen name on my phones Bluetooth page, but could not get the app to show the watch’s name for pairing. I had a new phone on order and when it arrived, I decided to install the Citizen Connected app on this new Samsung S9 phone. As soon as I opened the app, on the Samsung phone, the watch immediately showed up inside the app and began to pair with the new phone. I know now that the Citizen - CZ Smart 41mm Unisex Stainless Steel Casual Smartwatch with IP Stainless Steel Bracelet – Black does not work with all phones. Another problem I had was the long wristband that was not described in the online instructions. The watch’s wrist band is extremely long to fit many different sizes of wrists. The problem is that there is no instruction on how to remove links on the wristband to adjust it to the correct fitting size. The Citizen - CZ Smart 41mm Unisex Stainless Steel Casual Smartwatch with IP Stainless Steel Bracelet – Black is a high tech device. It has dozens of functions which can be controlled from the watch screen and the phone app. Swipes up, down, left, and right along with the three buttons controls all of the functions of the watch. Notifications, settings, wellness, sleep, heart rate and blood oxygen levels are some of the major functions that can be accessed from the watch’s screen. The first and second days of testing, my blood oxygen levels were 98% and 96% respectively. I was able to make a phone call with the Citizen - CZ Smart 41mm Unisex Stainless Steel Casual Smartwatch with IP Stainless Steel Bracelet – Black and walk around my home without my phone and have a complete conversation holding my wrist to my mouth. There is so much programming and time needed to fully get the watch running 100% that I have not totally used every function, but I can say so far the Citizen - CZ Smart 41mm Unisex Stainless Steel Casual Smartwatch with IP Stainless Steel Bracelet – Black is an excellent piece of technology for monitoring my health and wellness and everyday notifications that usually come to my phone.

My family and I have had extensive past and current experience with smartwatches from different brands, and I have to say that Citizen has the best ones, from a classic point of view. Many smartwatches look like smartwatches—they are square or rectangular, and just look plain. Citizen makes some of the best looking smartwatches around; they have the great look and design of traditional timepieces. That being said, the functionality of the various smartwatch functions beyond the simple ones of telling time, weather, timers, alarms and such, is more complicated. There are many things this watch can do in regards to fitness, tracking, and health monitoring (heart rate, oxygen, sleep, steps, calories), and the way to access them all is a bit convoluted. I have two other Citizen smartwatches, however, so I have the experience of intuitively knowing how to access all the functions already. But for the beginner or one who is not so tech savvy, it will be a trial to learn how to use this smartwatch. I will say, the CZ Smart YouQ App is not the best experience; I found myself not utilizing it and simply just using the Google Wear OS platform for all the functionality as I am already used to it from my other Android smartwatches (namely, my two other Citizen smartwatches!). Not to mention that I primarily use Google apps and browser systems for both work and personal use, so I am quite ensconced in the Google ecosystem. This may help, for those who are Google-platform savvy already. I really like the different watch faces and complications—there are a good number to choose from and customize. I have great access to all pertinent notifications for my calls, texts, and e-mails. Battery life could be better, but is pretty much on par with other smartwatches I have used—it lasts throughout the day for me with regular use, and I have to charge it up overnight, every night. It is compatible with either Android based or Apple based smartphones (I use it with an iPhone). Overall, I think this is a good-looking smartwatch with excellent functionality, but it is not an easy to use smartwatch for the average user, or for those who are not particularly tech-savvy. There is quite a learning curve.

I’ve been a fan of citizen watches for a while now. They tend to toe the line between looking nice and being cost-effective pretty well. When I’m not wearing my Apple Watch, my go-to analog watch is a Citizen. Naturally this seemed to be the best of both worlds… and it mostly is. Let’s start with the bad. It’s based on wearOS. If you have an Android phone, that’s probably not a bad thing. While it’s integration with iOS is functional, it definitely feels like a step down from what I’m used to. When using an iPhone, the CZ feels more akin to my LG G Watch from 2015 than a modern piece of technology. What’s weird is that I’m actually okay with that… for the most part. Notifications come through just fine, which is the main use I have for a watch like this. There are small annoyances like my phone still vibrating when I have this watch on but they don’t make it unusable. The fitness apps seem to leave something to be desired, but I don’t think this is meant to be a watch you wear to the gym. Where this watch seems to shine for me is in the niche between analog, and a full blown smart watch. As much as I love my Apple Watch, no matter how nice of a band you put on it, it still looks like a computer strapped to your wrist. This CZ gives me a watch that actually looks like a watch but maintains what I consider to be the fundamental features of a smart watch. Would I recommend it to someone who wants their first (or a new main) smartwatch? No. If you’re on iPhone, the Apple Watch is still king. Would I recommend it to someone who is just looking for a watch? Probably not. For the money, you can get a watch (from the same company even) that looks and feels much better. But for that small group of people who are looking for something in-between, I think you should give this a try.

This review is of the Citizen CZ on an iPhone. If you use and Android device, your experience may vary. The Citizen CZ is a nice looking watch, as smart watches go. That is to say, it looks more like an actual watch and less like an electronic bracelet than most. The stems on the side and the metal band certainly add to the “watch” vibe, and are functional. While the watch feels well-made and is light, the band feels cheap. For those of us used to the feel of a decent metal-banded watch, plan on budgeting for a decent replacement band right up front. While charging is simple enough, the CZ uses a proprietary charging cable. It’s great that it snaps into place for charging, but not great that you need to have yet another cable available. And it’s a cable you’ll have to remember to travel with. While the watch can run without recharging for a couple of days, this seems only to be accurate if you’re not wearing it. Once I was wearing it, receiving notifications, step count, etc., a day is all I was able to get out of it. When it reaches a low battery state, it goes into pure watch mode – no apps, no phone connectivity, and the face goes to a simple white on black design, presumably to save power. So it's not completely useless until it runs all the way down, but it is frustrating. The faces available for the watch mimic several classic Citizen faces, both analog and digital, and with a choice of colors. You can choose the data available and where to place them, or you can eliminate it to have a simple watch face and use the stems to get to the data. It would be nice to have a broader selection of faces, particularly different analog ones for those of us who prefer a traditional look, but it works. While the faces mimic classic Citizen designs, be aware that they don’t look three-dimensional, but rather like an animated image of the faces. There are a lot of data apps to choose from, and the step tracking seems much improved over the original CZ version. Overall, choosing the Fossil Google Wear OS implementation was a good choice (you will occasionally see a message pop up that references Fossil.) Now for the frustrations that may be IOS-specific. (I do not own an Android device to test with.) The biggest frustration is that the watch sometimes disconnects from the phone, and when it does it can be complicated to resolve. The watch face and phone app will both say to reconnect, but simply pressing the reconnect messages doesn’t always work. When this happens, the help feature suggests going to the Bluetooth menu on the phone and making sure the CZ is connected, then manually connected if it is not. Trying to manually connect on IOS results in the error message “Device not supported.” The CZ then disappears from the Bluetooth list, only to re-appear several second later and connect. The apps are not quite baked for IOS. I’ve not been able to get the Accuweather app to show me any data, despite setting the permissions it requested. Step count rarely matches between the watch and the phone app – and it’s not just a timing problem, which would mean the watch is consistently a higher number. Sometimes the app is higher, sometimes the watch is higher, frequently the app shows one number in the summary and a different one in the details. Overall, it’s a good smartwatch, one that may be better if you’re using an Android phone, and one that could be outstanding with a few tweaks.

This watch has the high quality that you would expect to find from Citizen. The watch band and watch are sturdy, attractive and very well made. I don't prefer a metal watch band and swapped it out for a Citizen leather band that is of the same high quality. Charging time is fast at less than hour for a fully dead battery. The Citizen Connect is very basic and is only useful to let you know your watch is connected. Even then, the watch seems to disconnect frequently and I have to refresh the app to get it connected again. The instructions that come with the it are very vague. You are prompted to download the Citizen Connect app but no where does it direct you to the CZ Smart YouQ application that is the big selling point of the watch. The CZ Smart YouQ application is very confusion and after weeks of use I still don't really know the value of the information it provides. It rarely syncs with the information from watch. I have to open the Connect app and click on the information, such as Sleep tracking, several times to get it to update. It then is hit or miss if it even syncs with the YouQ app. I really wanted to like this watch. As a time piece, it is really nice. As a smartwatch it leave a lot to desire, especially as advertising AI integration. I have much older smartwatches that were cheaper and do a better job of tracking and reporting on my activity.

I have to say that I had expected more out of this watch. With the Citizen name/brand I thought it would be more polished. Having owned a number of other smart watches I thought that this one would be comparable, unfortunately it is not. It is designed to be used with either the Android or iPhone platforms. I have an iPhone and yes it does work with my iPhone, but the interface is not quite there yet. I tried to set it up to take calls with the smart watch, but when using my earbuds to listen to music, it would fight with my ear buds and my ear buds would lose connection. If I tried to answer a call with my phone, it would show that my smart watch was an audio device, but if I wanted to use the speaker, it slows down the phone so it would take a couple of seconds before I could hear the person calling me. It does alert for texts and other messages, but I was expecting to be able to respond. I could not figure out how to respond. It is like it works one way only. So receives, but does not send. Unfortunately, this smart watch does not come with a detailed manual. So you pretty much have to figure it out on your own. It has a limited number of apps built in which is a good start, but they are still not all that polished. There are a few different faces and you can customize the faces a little bit. Using the Wellness app you can track your walk/run. It tracks the time, steps, calories, etc, but I could not get the steps to sync with my iPhone health app so that was disappointing. I even downloaded the Google Fit app to see if I could get that to sync, but I wasn’t able to get that to work. It may work, just need more time to get the settings correct so it will work. So in the end, if you are ok with trying to figure things out on your own, then this might be good for you. I am just to used to much more functionality that this watch does not yet offer.