Earlier this 12 months, on March 10th, Citizen introduced that it might be releasing the Citizen Eco-Drive Riiiver watch in Fall. With extra particulars now out there, and the discharge date coming ever nearer, we thought we’d check out what we are able to anticipate from this good-looking hybrid that gives a customizable set of capabilities designed to personalize the consumer expertise.
Firstly, the title: Riiiver is an open-source IoT platform service, by way of which the watch can join to varied units and providers. Precisely what you select to make use of Riiiver for appears fairly expansive, however the most well-liked examples provided by the corporate on this pre-release section are having the ability to summon a taxi to your present location with the easy push of a button, or to have your watch fingers actually level you within the route of the closest espresso store.
So how does it work? Riiiver’s intention is to “develop experiences with time, by connecting individuals, units, and providers.” The software program allows the consumer to arrange an “iiidea,” which is a pre-conceived motion that may work together and join with varied units and providers. An iiidea is user-defined and might fall underneath one in every of three classes: set off, service, or motion. A set off is an motion commenced by urgent a button on the watch (the taxi instance falls underneath this class); a service would embody discovering a close-by cafe or looking for music; an motion is one thing like shuffling your playlist in your linked gadget or pointing the fingers of a watch to a selected time.
The open-source nature of Riiiver means it’s going to always develop and evolve, with the watch’s performance increasing over time. On the very least, the Citizen Eco-Drive Riiiver watch is a good-looking, playfully styled watch that’s extremely low-maintenance due to it not needing to be charged as many sensible or hybrid watches do. The Eco-Drive know-how makes use of an amorphous silicon photocell situated behind the dial to cost the watch when uncovered to (any sort of) mild.
The colours used on this launch have led to the watch being known as a “programmer’s watch” by the in-house design crew — the intense main colours (and inexperienced) are typical of laptop code. The result’s a watch that appears enjoyable, futuristic, and a bit bit like an Alan Silberstein homage (which is rarely actually a foul factor). My private favourite is the stainless-steel mannequin with inexperienced, yellow, and pink fingers (ref. BZ7007-61E).
One of many cleverest (and coolest) features of this design is the fingers. Though they’re very clearly distinguishable as an hour and a minute hand, they’re really precisely the identical dimension, with their energetic dimension dictated by the brightly coloured detailing. Being the identical dimension makes their secondary performance when interacting with Riiiver all of the neater and clearer.
Citizen has poured greater than a century of watchmaking expertise into this piece and provide you with one thing that’s not solely very cool to take a look at, and constructed with high-quality supplies, but additionally probably the most connective hybrids available on the market. The stainless-steel case and band can be found in each naked metallic and blackened completed. The case measures 43.2mm by 12.6mm and is topped by an anti-reflective sapphire crystal for absolute readability. Its strong development ensures 100 meters water resistance. The watch is powered by the Eco-Drive caliber W150, which is correct to ± 15 seconds monthly. The motion is ready to run for seven months on a full cost (about 1.5 years when in power-save mode). The Citizen Eco-Drive Riiiver watch is ready to connect with your smartphone by way of Bluetooth, in addition to third-party units and providers by way of Riiiver. Citizen is aiming to launch the Citizen Eco-Drive Riiiver watch in Fall 2019, and it’ll carry a (projected retail) value of $450 plus tax. To maintain on prime of developments and register your curiosity in being notified of the discharge date, go to citizenwatch-global.com.
