Citizen’s newest CZ Smart watch is no longer available as the company temporarily suspends all sales. This comes as the Gen-2 CZ smartwatch experiences technical issues with both reviewers and customers.
In an email to those who received a review unit of the Citizen Gen-2 CZ Smart watch, the company stated a technical issue has been identified that is “negatively affecting the user experience of the Gen-2 CZ Smart touchscreen models.” This issue is so bad that the company is pulling the Wear OS 3 watch from the shelves and is suspending sales while it looks for a solution.
This is the second variation of the CZ smartwatch from Citizen, as denoted by the “Gen-2” branding. The company has been marketing the watch for a little over three months at this point, with review units only recently making their way to publications. One of those units is currently in my possession, though it won’t be for long.
Our experience with the Citizen CZ Gen-2 Smart watch harmonizes well with the statement issued by the company. At first, I assumed that Citizen might have just slept on optimizing the watch, which was admittedly wishful thinking. We’ve had issues with performance and a brutally slow interface, as well as battery performance concerns. Some of the proprietary watch faces don’t even show up once set, leaving a blank screen that’s difficult to exit. The experience has been rough, to say the least.
These sentiments are echoed by others who have used the Citizen’s latest CZ watch. Michael Fisher and Wired’s Julian Chokkattu have both expressed the same issues with performance and battery. The included watch face incompatibility also seems to be a widespread issue.
Whatever the technical issue may be, Citizen is hoping to fix it and, in an ideal situation, continue sales once the problem is solved. It’s a shame that the watch has so many issues. The design is rather nice, and I really love the geometric approach taken to the lugs.
Even still, it might take some time for the issue to be solved, if it is. In the meantime, it may take a while for third-party retailers to pull units off of the shelf, so be sure to avoid purchasing the CZ Gen-2 touchscreen watch from Citizen.
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