Citizen Is Suspending Sales Of Its New Wear OS Smartwatch
Citizen is temporarily halting sales of the second-generation CZ smartwatch, which was first announced at CES 2023 and then released on May 1st . Although the smartwatch has been on the market for almost three months, Citizen claims that it "recently discovered a technical problem". a problem that negatively affects the user experience.
The company's email statement comes weeks after the watchmaker sent test units to product reviewers, including myself. I've had bad experiences with the Gen-2 CZ Smart and have cataloged the bugs I've found. I shared my comments with the Citizen earlier this week. Issues include a slow user interface, poor battery life, inaccurate heart rate data, inaccurate sleep tracking, the watch freezing on certain screens, and Citizen YouQ exclusive features not working. The smartwatch starts at $350.
I'm not alone. YouTube tech columnist Michael Fisher (better known as MrMobile) made many of the same mistakes I did and even imagined a few new ones, such as the Pilot watch face that just can't tell the right time. If you look at the Citizen CZ Smart product page, customers are not satisfied either. There are many complaints about poor battery life and slow software, and some of these reviews were posted two or three months ago.
Citizen says they are contacting customers who bought the watch to find a solution. “We are investigating the issue, removing the revised models from the market and temporarily suspending sales of models with touch screens. At the same time, we are determining the origin of the problem and how we can best solve it for our customers and partners," said a spokesman for Citizens in One. E-mail. It will take a week or more to resolve the temporary suspension of sales.
The company clarified that this issue only affects the CZ Smart Touchscreen models, not the CZ Smart Hybrid. The affected models are as follows and you can find this number on the right side of the CZ Smart Box:
- MX1003-71X
- MX1000-28X
- MX1000-01X
- MX1000-52X
- MX1005-83X
- MX1002-57X
- MX1018-06X
- MX1017-50X
- MX1010-59X
- MX1011-05X
- MX1016-28X
The Gen-2 CZ Smart is the successor to the original CZ Smart 2020 and runs on the Google Wear OS 3 smartwatch platform. It should work like any other smartwatch - you can check and act on notifications, control music playback and your smart home Control devices - But Citizen has promoted a special app called CZ Smart YouQ that's designed specifically for the watch.
YouQ is the result of a partnership with IBM Watson and NASA researchers. After wearing the watch for a while, it should know your physical and cognitive energy levels. Over time, you'll get an energy score each day and can offer "Energy Solutions" to change how your energy levels are evolving, making you feel more connected than drained. These resolutions can be as simple as drinking a cup of coffee, or they can be a little more intense, like lifting weights for 30 minutes.
The concept isn't new, as companies like Fitbit and Garmin have long had tools like Daily Fitness Scores and Body Battery to measure fitness readiness. But Citizen is more focused on increasing alertness and productivity throughout the day rather than just exercise.
The CZ Smart's hardware isn't the newest: it's powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 4100+ processor, while new Wear OS smartwatches like the TicWatch Pro 5 use the new, faster Qualcomm Snapdragon W5+ chip and have a more energy-efficient battery. However, there are Wear OS smartwatches with the same chipset as the CZ Smart that don't have the same flaws.
The citizen has not set a deadline for the suspension of sales, but given the scale of the problems, it may take some time.
Update at 3:05pm ET: We've clarified that the CZ Smart Hybrid models are not affected and have listed the model names of the smartwatches that are experiencing issues.
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