Similarly to other Japanese industries and brands, Citizen is gradually moving upmarket, and is trying to raise its brand image thanks to products that are increasingly complex from a technical point of view, and increasingly sophisticated from a design standpoint.
The spearhead of this strategy to move upmarket rests on the Eco-Drive technology, launched by Citizen in 1995. This technology uses an energy production and storage system that is the simplest, although the most technologically evolved for quartz watches, in which a solar cell and a rechargeable battery ensure the required production of electrical energy. This system has been gradually perfected by the engineers at Citizen who succeeded in developing dials that are increasingly advanced and aesthetically increasingly refined. Today, Citizen can generate the necessary energy letting the light pass to the Solar cell only through the intermediate subdials, using the most precious of materials, such as mother-of-pearl.




ECO-DRIVE MINUTE REPEATER WITH PERPETUAL CALENDAR


These same engineers at Citizen have also developed various supplemental technologies, with quite remarkable performances, such as the ‘sleeping mode’. In this case, a watch can be left ‘sleeping’ for four years (in a dark drawer, for example), then when exposed to the light, all the displays – hour, minute, and date – are automatically corrected as if no time had ever passed. A true feat.
The potential uses of this technology were plainly demonstrated this year at BaselWorld, with the remarkable presentation of the Eco-Drive Minute Repeater with Perpetual Calendar.
It is a veritable fusion of the most advanced Eco-Drive technology and research into design and function, drawing inspiration from the most traditional haute horlogerie. Both hi-tech and classic at the same time, this watch offers all the functions of a minute repeater chiming the hours, the quarter-hours, and the minutes on demand, matched with those of a perpetual calendar indicating the months and the days (using a hand on a scale in the form of a ‘C’). In addition, this timepiece even has an alarm.




ECO-DRIVE RADIO CONTROLLED CHRONOGRAPH WIITH ALL-TITANIUM CASE


Although the minute repeater chime, which tries to electronically reproduce the chime of a classic watch, does not exactly succeed in reaching the full effect of a mechanical chime, this is a secondary point in relation to the sophistication of this piece.
Citizen has pushed its advantage in this Eco-Drive technology with another advance. It combines it with radio-controlled signal technology to create a new analogue chronograph with 1/20th of a second, in a titanium case.
In the medium term (2008), Citizen expects to equip 80 percent of its watches with this promising Eco-Drive technology.


Source: Europa Star June-July 2006 Magazine Issue