Citizen ECO-DRIVE Watch Review
Wednesday - 15 February 2012
Japan seems to be in the forefront of the “green” movement in the watch industry. Both Citizen and Seiko compete to design stylish pieces that harbour the latest in environmentally-friendly technology. For Citizen, that’s the ECO-DRIVE. Recently, the company introduced several new Ladies watches that utilise the newest versions of ECO-DRIVE.
This leap forward eliminates the need for batteries. Not only does this negate the cost associated with changing batteries, but it also cuts a sliver out of the total demand for capacitors. The production processes that go into producing batteries are themselves very harmful to the environment. Disposing of them is an even greater problem. The way of the future is clearly to avoid their use as much as possible.
On a small level, that’s precisely what Citizen is doing. Light is the source of power for the device. Any light will do: natural or artificial. Electrical energy is stored in a power storage unit that is bereft of any harmful substances. Even better, a tremendous amount of energy can be accumulated. If the piece is left in total darkness, there’s enough power for the watch to run uninterrupted for about half of a year.
What’s remarkable is that these pieces resemble conventional wristwatches in almost every other way. There’s no sacrifice in style that has to be made in order to accommodate this new technology. Moreover, Citizen Watches are beautiful pieces that are still affordable to large segments of the market. These aren’t $10,000 ladies watches, and that’s part of the ingenuity of what Citizen is doing. By producing for sophisticated twenty something females, the company’s able to make more of an environmental impact than if they sold limited edition models to a handful of customers. The ECO-DRIVE wouldn’t mean nearly as much if it were a novelty, a curiosity, available only on high-end models.
