Technology

The fundamental mission of a watch is a straightforward one: to tell the accurate time. Ever since the founding of the brand, The CITIZEN has devoted itself wholeheartedly to the pursuit of accurate timekeeping. The technology we created limits deviation to almost nothing over the course of 365 days. We think about every individual autonomous second, counting themselves off day by day and month by month. That is why The CITIZEN developed movements that use only the most rigorously selected crystal oscillators and are assembled from individual components of extraordinary precision. We have achieved the highest levels of annual accuracy of ±5 seconds and or ±1 second (dependent on the model). We achieved this extreme level of accuracy using CITIZEN’s own proprietary Eco-Drive technology. We created a watch that tells the accurate time and keeps on running powered only by light, without the need for regular battery replacement.

Ultimate Accuracy

Temperature can have a big impact on the accuracy of a watch. From freezing mid-winter to baking-hot summer, we actually live with greater temperature differentials than we often think. A quartz watch which tells the correct time at 25 degrees Celsius, experiences a slowdown of 0.1 seconds per day for every 5 degrees Celsius that the temperature changes. For a watch that measures its accuracy on an annual basis like The CITIZEN, that constitutes a major deviation. However, the CITIZEN is equipped with a temperature correction function. This function automatically monitors and adjusts for the watch’s internal temperature once per minute for a total of 1,440 measurements per day, ensuring that accuracy is maintained.

Craftsmanship

As one of just a handful of manufactures worldwide, CITIZEN makes every part of its watches in-house. Assembling The CITIZEN watches demands extraordinary skill. That task is performed by our watchmaking Meisters, master craftspeople whose finely-honed instincts breathe life into the products. In our quest for greater elegance and accuracy, we work ceaselessly to improve every individual technology and component of our watches. That is the reason we have the capacity to make everything, from the tiniest components through to hands and cases, ourselves; in fact, we even make the machines that we use to make the parts! Once all the components of The CITIZEN watches have been manufactured in CITIZEN factories around Japan, they are shipped to the company’s special watch workshop deep in the Nagano countryside, where they are painstakingly built by hand. It is a complex process with multiple stages. The skills of many craftspeople come together to give shape and form to the elegance and accuracy of The CITIZEN.