In the art-meets-science world of watchmaking, where boundaries are often broken regularly in matters of movements, development and design, it’s not often that a feat from the 1970s remains ingenious. Citizen’s Eco-Drive technology is another story, although not without its own set of particular challenges, with 50 years of proprietary knowledge proving worthy of celebration.
As Maxim found out during an exclusive spring media tour through two of Citizen’s 17 Japanese factories, steadfast ingenuity remains paramount. Long before the watchmaker developed a groundbreaking movement reliably fed by any source of light (billed as “powerfully advanced and elegantly discreet”), there was a commitment to detailed science. Focused on Japanese-made quality to rival imported pocket watches, Kamekichi Yamazaki founded the Shokosha Watch Research Institute in 1918, later developing what would become Citizen’s first pocket watch in 1924.
Even the newest lineup of Citizen Eco-Drive watches benefits from the company’s 1976 innovation. Among the latest is the Citizen Light in Black Collection, a luxe-yet-accessible range of black-gold timepieces priced from $495 to $2,195. The Citizen Eco-Drive story dives much deeper than the latest and greatest, however.
Following its 1924 pocket watch debut, Citizen would go on to make the country’s first waterproof watch and Japan’s first automatic winding men’s watch, among other barriers broken. For what Citizen lacks in centuries-old watchmaking history, like its Swiss horological competitors, it makes up for in modern engineering. The “Citizen” name was even carefully selected in the 1920s to reflect timekeeping devices built for the people of the world, rather than taking a traditional Japanese name.
The famed Japanese commitment to rigorous craft and thoughtful study lends itself to ambitious, technical watches that announce themselves quietly, qualities that are firmly on display at its Japanese factories. Derived from a solar cell that converts light into electrical energy while resting beneath any number of dial combinations, colors and finishes, Eco-Drive’s 1976 market entry looked to combat waste from quartz battery-powered watches. The effort has proven fruitful as well as technological: Citizen says it has saved more than 100 million batteries from landfills since it launched its first analog light-powered watch.
Even 50 years after Citizen debuted its solar-focused technology, there’s both a “wonderment and genius” behind the company’s ultra-precise craft, Citizen Watch U.S. Managing Director Eric Horowitz said while exploring Citizen’s Japanese archives this past spring. Today, the horologist cherishes an “unwavering obsession with quality,” Horowitz said during a tour through Citizen’s Kawaguchiko dial factory, commonly known as “the watch factory at the foot of Mt. Fuji.”
In its early days, a watch could run for about eight days on one solar cell Eco-Drive charge, yet a new 2025 Promaster Eco-Drive can run for a full year on a single charge. Citizen embraces a “better starts now” approach, Horowitz said, and noted it wants 80 percent of its dials to feature recycled polycarbonate in the next few years, a lofty goal requiring plenty of ambition and research. “As long as there is light, our watches will keep moving,” Yoshihisa Yajima, Citizen brand manager, sagely told a group of journalists at its Kawaguchiko dial factory.
At Kawaguchiko, dials are crafted through processes like pad printing or injection molding in a sleek assembly line process that still uses a surprising number of human inspection and craftsmanship touchpoints. Other Citizen factories, like its Saku operation, focus obsessively on movements (the factory is one of the world’s largest when it comes to movement development). About 150 separate processes go into producing each Citizen movement, and the watchmaker goes so far as to fabricate machines that make its own remarkably small watch movement components.
A movement is finished at the factory roughly every second, and roughly 400,000 watch coils are produced per day to help drive those movements. Other Citizen production facilities focus on durable, variable parts like straps and bracelets, making the Citizen watch production process practically a country-wide affair.
Eco-Drive technology is almost infinitely customizable, with the ability to be applied to watch categories like the luxury sport chronograph Attesa or the field-ready Promaster. The Japanese company’s most elegant offering, ultra-dressy watch The Citizen, is also available in an Eco-Drive build and remains accurate within plus-or-minus 5 seconds across a year, although some watch enthusiasts might debate the merits of an Eco-Drive watch versus an automatic movement, for instance.
Citizen cuts no corners from factory to factory. When seen up close and personal, dial designs are the focus of microscopic detail across the board, including an impossibly delicate hand-dyed green washi paper Eco-Drive watch released late this spring. Developing a dial from the thin, flexible Japanese paper as an homage to five decades of Citizen Eco-Drive technology was an exercise in intricate form, said watch production engineer Daisuke Yamakage. “There are endless possibilities for what we can create in-house,” Yamakage said at the company’s Saku dial factory, noting that the limited-edition dial speaks to an “incredible evolution” of possibility for the company.
For each of its limited-edition dial experiments, the Japanese watchmaker remains largely pragmatic in its approach to design: While Swiss companies might focus on the fine art of watch assembly in lavish workshops, Citizen looks at its timepieces as true tools meant to be worn in the wild rather than rest quietly in a collector’s box.
As the company develops new timepieces, utility is never far from the conversation, said Shoichiro Morita, Citizen’s master movement engineer. “What kind of objective is this watch going to meet?” Morita said at its Saku factory. “We have to relook at everything” with each next step, he added. Even its Eco-Drive movement is the subject of tinkering, as the company looks to retool movement accuracy within a matter of a few seconds per year.
That kind of straightforward practicality could also lend itself to some potential market difficulties, it would seem: As many Swiss and even Japanese watchmakers focus on increasingly otherworldly designs like those found at yearly watch conferences, certain brands might lose ground among watch enthusiasts, at least in the court of public opinion.
That means Citizen has to focus on both technological advancement and on “the very, very best in affordable quality,” said Horowitz, its U.S. managing director. For now, Citizen has several months left to celebrate five decades of scientific-plus-horological excellence, the kind the watchmaker says “will keep ticking wherever you take it.” In the near future, look for an entire lineup of new Citizen Eco-Drive watches poised to offer proprietary technology, striking good looks and understated Japanese utility.