Smartwatches are the perfect combination of an activity monitor, notification centre, speakerphone, and more all in one. These new Citizen smartwatches with voice control and heart rate monitoring are a great way to get a lot out of a tiny little device. Let’s talk design, functionality, and Citizen’s new YouQ platform that helps you optimize your day for peak performance.
What is Citizen CZ YouQ?
Citizen is a watch brand that most people will recognize. With over 100 years of history, the brand has been designing classic timepieces for longer than I or anyone reading this has been alive. They’ve even pioneered some major watch technologies, like the first solar watch.
But the CZ line is new. It’s a line of smartwatches that comes with a whole spiel: Citizen calls it “CZ Smart with IBM Watson®” and it features an element that the brand has named YouQ. Unlike other smartwatches, which are typically designed to help you access your body’s raw data throughout the day, YouQ is a gamified approach to wearable technology. It combines your aggregate alertness scores and sleep data to create your personal Power Gauge. The Power Gauge graph shows you when your body is anticipated to peak and drop in alertness, giving you a window of time when you’re likely to be at your most effective and alert. Along with the gauge, YouQ will give you an Hourly Power Score plus Power Fixes to help you target your tired or unfocused periods.
So, instead of just being a push notification centre or step tracker, these CZ smartwatches are an AI-powered way to optimize your performance throughout the day. You can use all of these smartwatches with or without YouQ, but I thought it would be an interesting place to start off this review. As far as I know, it’s pretty unique. Every smart monitoring device has the data it needs to give you this type of info, but most brands either aren’t re-processing it or are presenting it in a different way.
I think this is a pretty cool technology. However, because it’ll present such different results for every individual, I’m going to focus this review more on the day-to-day capabilities of this range of Citizen smartwatches. If you buy one of these smartwatches to use YouQ, keep in mind that it takes about two weeks for the watch to form these graphs and suggestions—so purchase early if there’s a specific event or project that you’re trying to get into peak mental state for!
What’s in the box of a Citizen CZ Smartwatch?
In the box of each of these smartwatches, you’ll find a watch packed tightly on a foam base. It comes with a magnetic charging cable, a quick start guide, and product literature. What I really appreciate about these boxes is that they’re totally reusable: The foam is packed in really securely, but nothing is glued. So, you can reuse these well-made boxes really easily.
(Hey, a good box is a good box!)
Note that while all of these magnetic charging cables look the same, some have two prongs while others have one. If you purchase his & hers watches, make sure to remember that your charging cables may not be interchangeable. They’ll each magnetize to every watch, but won’t necessarily charge other models.
Citizen smartwatch compatibility
These smartwatches turn on by holding their large centre dial for three seconds. They ship charged, or generally ship charged, so I recommend charging them when they arrive but you may be able to get away with setting them up right out of the box. Citizen designed these watches to be both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth compatible and they work with iPhone and Android.
Citizen CZ Smartwatches are built on Google’s Wear OS 3. Some models (Smart Sport and Casual Touchscreen models but not Hybrid designs) contain a speaker and microphone so you can take calls right from your smartwatch. They’re voice compatible with built-in Amazon Alexa.
Sport vs Casual touchscreen watch features
There are three subcategories within the Citizen CZ watch line. Sport models offer silicone, leather, or stainless steel traps while Casual models come with a mesh bracelet-style watch band, stainless steel links, or silicone straps. Both of these options have a full touchscreen face and all three of these smartwatch designs use the same three-dial design. From the Sport and Casual watches, you can expect to find customizable watch faces, resizable watch bands, and a bevy of downloadable apps. Both of these watch types can track your heart rate, pulse oxygen levels, and sleep quality, and can push notifications and alarms to your wrist.
The Citizen CZ Smart Sport watches in this review are the PQ2 Sport 45mm in Black Bracelet (black on black bezel with a metal bracelet) and Black Strap (black bezel on silver lugs with a silicone strap). They charge in 40 minutes and run for 24 hours per charge. The PQ2 is not water-resistant, features an OLED screen, and is finished with Gorilla glass. It contains a gyroscope, an altimeter, a barometer, and an accelerometer.
The Citizen CZ Casual Touchscreen watches in this review are the PQ2 Casual 41mm in Silver-Tone Bracelet and Rose Gold-Tone Mesh. They’re built on the same software and hardware as the Sport watches, so they have the same capabilities and charge time.
Hybrid Citizen smartwatch features
Citizen Hybrid Smartwatches look and function a little differently from the brand’s Sport and Casual lines. While the other watches reviewed here are built on Citizen’s PQ2 watch, these hybrid watches are built on the Smart Hybrid Extreme.
If you sacrifice the OLED screen of a full touchscreen watch, you can gain a lot: In this case, an extra 17 days of battery life. These hybrid smartwatches have a MIP Display instead of an OLED watch face (still finished in Gorilla Glass). That means the display reloads slightly more slowly and does so in a finely pixelated fashion, and it looks seamless and matte—when they’re not in motion, these displays look like they’ve been printed, not projected.
Citizen’s Hybrid line of smartwatches can still push notifications to your wrist, scroll through messages, play music, control your smart home, monitor your blood oxygen levels, and more. They just go about their tasks slightly differently.
The Citizen CZ Smart Hybrid Extreme Smartwatches here are the 44pm GPS model in Silver and Black.
My experience with these Citizen smartwatches
Overall, I was really happy with these Citizen smartwatches. They’re well-built, stylish, and offer a ton of features with excellent app integration. On my smaller frame, I prefer the 41mm Casual design, but all three of these styles can be worn as unisex/genderless products.
My favourite feature in these watches wasn’t the new YouQ (though I admit that it’s very cool) but was, instead, the integration of pulse rate and pulse ox monitoring. Citizen advises you not to use their smartwatches as medical devices, but based on simultaneous readings from this watch and my actual pulse rate and blood pressure monitors, they’re spot on. For smaller wrists, I found I got a better reading with the watch face on the inside of my arm, but if you want to be constantly monitoring I’d recommend just wearing your watch slightly higher so it never loses contact during wrist motion.
These smartwatches are a great way to optimize your focus throughout the workday, track your daily activity levels, and stay on top of any irregularities in your body. Shop this line of Citizen smartwatches online at Best Buy today.
I won’t miss important calls
Using the health features to keep healthy.
this would make it much easier to monitor my sleep since i live alone
This would make my life easier because I’m trying to add more activity into my life in small ways. This would make it easier to track!
It would make it easier for me to track my fitness
Again I must say the GPS feature would be great for me to have.
By having a watch like this, my husband, to whom I would gift it, would be both more organized and greater aware of his health and fitness levels.
Would use the watch to check notifications instead of puling my phone out
I think this would make my life easier if I could track my progress through the day. It’s so multi-functional, that I would be able to so many things, plus it looks great.
I think this would help me increase my work out intensity, aiming for a higher heart rate while running or walking.
As a personal trainer the watch would keep me on top of my fitness goals.
i would get notifications on my wrist instead of having to check my phone. No phone required!
Seeing/ignoring notifications without taking out your phone is a time saver for sure.
It would help me because it would help me track my fitness workouts.
I think the notifications being available is so important because there’s nothing worse than being a parent and missing something important about one of your kids. When it comes to the fitness I sure could use it to get moving again. I’m on disability and don’t have the mobility I used to have so this would be great to help me get moving more . Overall a great all around watch !!
GPS feature would make it easier to travel.
Seeing/ignoring notifications without taking out your phone is a time saver for sure. Having the time on your wrist too..lol.
I think the notifications would be great right now as we are having to dispense a lot of medications at various times of the day and this feature i think would keep us on track!
alot of cool features and I think the heart rate monitor would be really useful when exercising!
As I am aging I would use the Power Gauge, Power Monitoring feature to get the most out of me at the peak/best times for my body’s energy levels so that I can maximize my daily workload/
It will: optimize your day for peak performance.
After all it has “Watson” – Big Blue
YouQ will give me an Hourly Power Score plus Power Fixes to help me target my tired or unfocused periods
Very fast to receive notifications. thats a timesaver!
The smart notification and fitness feature would best suit my hybrid work environment so I can keep on top of schedule changes and making sure I keep myself active even when working more on a laptop.
The heart rate monitor would make my life easier and better while I’m working out
This watch would make it easy to track whether my fitness regiment was allowing me to hit my recommended targets.
the measuring my blood oxygen levels will be very helpful while running, my current smart watch does not have that function and I am an avid runner
The GPS and heart rate monitor features will help a lot when Im biking or hiking
Notifications through the watch would benefit me
It would be amazing to have all these features in the convenience of a fashionable time piece rather than to have to check my phone all the time!
Notifications would be the thing I want
Definitely notifications and GPS when I’m on the go without having to check my phone!
This smart watch has ups and downs. I like the heart rate monitor, and as Rae mentioned on her review, is on par with an actual heart rate monitor. Unlike other smart watches that I owned in the past where the feature is unreliable, if not completely useless.
The down side is this watch… is having yet another smart device to charge every day.
Other than this is a nice looking watch. I own an eco drive watch which I wear oftenly. Yes I am a Citizen watch fan. Lol
Smart Notifications, so I don’t need my phone to receive important calls or texts.
gorilla glass to save me from klutziness
The watch would remind me of my fitness goals!
i would get notifications on my wrist instead of having to check my phone
This would help me reach my health and fitness goals for 2024.
Easily get notifications through the watch.
It would keep me on top of my fitness goals I think!
This will make my life better by alerting me to unproductive times!
All of the health and fitness tracking features will help keep me on track with my goals.
The smart notification feature might make my life a little easier because I would never be late again. These watches are awesome.
Health and fitness tracking would make new year goal easier to achieve as I will able to make routine with the watch in mind
I would be using the GPS feature the most as I like to travel
My family doctor suggested I get a Smart watch to monitor my heart rate, oxygen levels and other health issues..I’m 82 so she felt this would allow me to keep track of things on a daily basis. However, being on just pensions, I cannot afford the expensive watches. I tried a cheap on but it didn’t work. This type of watch would relieve my anxiety when I’m feeling stressed.
This watch would make my life easier by having personal health information at my fingertips – literally! Ha ha ha
This watch would make my life much easier. It would be a way for students to message me so I can go check off their skills, as phones are not allowed in Hospitals where i have my nursing students
At my age, I would love to have a whole lot of health-related information at my fingertips, especially the heart-rate monitor.
It would definitely make it easier for me to keep track of my fitness. To see how many calories I’ve been burning, steps I’ve been taking, heart rate during exercises, etc.
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