Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #665 in Watches
• Brand: Citizen
• Model: BN0000-04H
• Dimensions: 3.07" h x 4.72" w x 4.96" l, .84 pounds
• Band material: Rubber
• Bezel material: stainless-steel
• Case material: stainless-steel
• Clasp type: Buckle
• Dial color: black
• Dial window material: Mineral
• Movement type: japanese-quartz
• Water-resistant to 984 feet

Features

• Ecologically friendly, light powered Eco-Drive Japanese-quartz movement; Charges in natural sunlight or indoor light
• Durable, hardened mineral crystal
• Case diameter: 43 mm
• Stainless-steel case; Black dial; Date function
• Water-resistant to 984 feet (300 M)

Amazon.com Product Description
The men's Eco-Drive Professional Diver contains a screw-down crown on a solid one-piece case, for a fantastic water resistance of 300 meters. Enjoy the use of a one-way rotating elapsed-time bezel, luminous hands and markers, and date display, all on a comfortable black polyurethane strap.

The Citizen Watch Brand

The company was established in 1924. The founding fathers selected the name Citizen so it would be "Close to the Hearts of People Everywhere" and soon after adopted the company’s formal name, Citizen Watch Company.

During the last seventy-five years Citizen has expanded its business throughout the world and has achieved recognition as the global brand. The past twenty-five year period has coincided with the company’s dramatic rise to its current position as the world’s largest watchmaker, a distinction Citizen has held every year since 1986.

Beyond sheer size, Citizen is also recognized as a worldwide leader in advanced technology. From the world’s slimmest LCD watch to the first voice recognition watch and the world’s first professional dive watch with an electronic depth sensor, Citizen’s record of "world’s firsts" is unmatched.

More recently, Citizen has staked out a new position as the leader in Ecologically Friendly timekeeping with its Eco-Drives watches that are light powered. With models ranging from dress models to sports models to professional dive watches, Citizen Eco-Drive runs continuously in any kind of natural or artificial light for a lifetime of use. Fueled by light, it never needs a battery.

Eco-Drive Frequently Asked Questions (See the full Citizen Eco-Drive FAQ here)

How can you tell if the Eco-Drive watch is getting enough light?
In normal use, the watch displays the time and the sweep-second hand moves in one second intervals. A very important feature of Eco-Drive is the Low Charge Warning Mode which as a result of low battery voltage, causes the second hand to jump two seconds at a time (while still keeping correct time).

How long will an Eco-Drive watch run after it is fully charged?
If your watch is put away where no light is available to it while in a fully charged state, depending on the model, it will run for from 45 days to 5 years.

How can the Eco-Drive watch be recharged?
Besides sunlight, it can be safely charged by exposing it to a fluorescent desk lamp, with the dial (face) up and within about 8 inches or an incandescent lamp (regular light bulb) no closer than 20 inches. Never use a halogen lamp since the heat generated by it can cause damage to your watch. The most efficient and the quickest is in direct bright sunlight (not windowsill) and never on the dashboard of a car.

Customer Reviews

Citizen Eco-Drive Men's Professional Diver Watch
I got this watch about 5 years ago in Nassau. I am a very active person and I have worn it 24 hours a day since then and subjected it to high abuse. I have only taken it off occasionally to set the date, time, etc. I have used it to scuba dive dozens of times in fresh and salt water, to over 100 feet depth as well as snorkeling, wearing it in the pool, shower, etc. It has been exposed to soaps, detergents, solvents, scraping across concrete and rocks, dropped on a hard surface, etc. It keeps very good time and never misses a beat. The band loops that hold the excess band broke off a couple of years ago. I replaced them with 2 O-rings slid over the strap on the buckle end to secure the excess strap. I have scratched the crystal pretty badly and worn the numbers off the bezel and the dive tables off the strap. The stainless steel case doesn't show much abuse but the rest does. The strap is cracked through the edge to the little holes in the sides a few places and needs to be replaced.

The things I really like about it are the durability, maintenance free battery (eco drive), accuracy, and low profile. I have been in the dark for most of a couple of days and never had a power failure from lack of light and never paid special attention to exposing it to light except for holding it under a flash light or aircraft overhead light some times for a few seconds to try and get some more illumination from the hands at night. It seems very thin compared to other watches the same thickness (11 mm)due to the edges of the bezel being rounded and beveled to be unobtrusive. I like the small diameter low profile and light weight that keep it out of the way.

My only complaints are: the strap is $45, I wish the bezel had the numbers engraved instead of printed on it (for cosmetic reasons due to wear), I wish the crystal was harder, and the hands more luminous. All these things are pretty much par for the price point.

I am looking for a replacement due to the cosmetic wear and the band costing $45 and the fact that I haven't had much luck with cheap replacement bands in the past for other watches. I am considering a Seiko or Luminox to get more durable cosmetics on the bezel, maybe a tougher crystal, and better night illumination but they all feel thicker and heavier. If this just had an engraved bezel I would get another one and maybe will anyway.

I recommend this watch and rate it highly especially considering the price.

excellent dive watch
I have had this watch for several weeks and I love it. The most amazing thing about it is the degree of accuracy. I also have a Casio G-Shock Atomic Watch which sets itself every day to the atomic clock in Colorado and is accurate to the second, well I synchronized my Citizen and Casio on June 1 and as of today (June 11) they are still synchronized to the second. The Citizen Eco is that accurate! I have not taken this watch diving yet, but will soon, it should be fine. I have 6 dive watches and this has all the necessary features: depth rating (300 meters), one way ratched bezel, crown protection, strap that fits over a wetsuit, etc.
My only criticisms, and they are minor, are that the date is way to small to read, they should have just not had a date and it would be better with a more anti reflection in the crystal, that aside. This is a beautiful watch and I highly recommend it!

Best Diver for the $ Bar None
Pros:

Citizen's BN0000-04H has something unique. It may not carry the weight of a TAG Heuer, Omega, Rolex, or other sport-dive watch (in cold hard $, "prestige", or actual literal heaviness for sure), but it really has charm.

With this watch you get the superior time-keeping qualities of a high-grade japanese quartz movement (quartz always runs on a battery - yes, there is a specially-engineered titanium-manganese battery in there) but without the need for any battery change, ever (at least 20 years by Citizen engineers' estimates). This movement blows automatics out of the water in time-keeping. It doesn't have the fluid sweep of an automatic's second hand (it ticks in 1-second intervals), but for me keeping time is what counts in a watch, right?

This is a set-it-and-forget-it watch. It will keep on trucking about 6-months in total darkness from a full charge. And if it does stop, it'll come out of it to full accurate time-keeping with just 15 minutes in the summer sunshine. It will run a whole 24 hour time-cycle with only 4 minutes of light exposure. Eco-Drive is the new deal in watch movement. [EDIT: Not to mention the battery inside is specially made non-toxic. It's a green machine.]

As to its pedigree, it's a real ISO-rated dive watch. There's an easy way to tell with Citizens: if there's an M after the depth rating on the face, it's ISO-rated. This isn't just my theory, this is from Citizen's own product info. This watch wants to see dive time.

The watch face, which some call cramped, feels to me like looking through a porthole in a submarine or something. It's a little deep. I can tell the time just fine. The hour dots are legible in all kinds of light situations. The lume is about as good as Seiko's lumibrite, which is to say, pretty darn good. But it's no Luminox to be sure. [EDIT: The lume, in my tests, lasts well over a 12 hour cycle in total darkness from just 15 seconds of direct charging with a flashlight. Don't think it's bright at all after those 12 hours, though. But it does have a really nice greenish glow when charged.]

The mineral-crystal is domed, but you can see the time even at a pretty sharp angle. I like the dome, goes with the porthole feel. The face also bears a really nicely done little pyramid-shaped grid pattern. That might be the solar cell, but either way, it's beautiful the way it picks up light.

With the hands, some say they're "phallic" but I think they look more like lit candles. Haven't seen hands like them anywhere, and I get bored with all the pointed-arrow and straight-line designs. And they're nice, fat and visible in the dark. Furthermore, everything's outlined in chrome. Has the look of quality engineering.

[EDIT: The second hand lines up almost perfect with the little markers on the beveled inside edge. It's perfect, spot-on precise 50-59 seconds out of a minute on mine, but it isn't perfect every single time. And it varies from minute to minute which 1-10 markers it misses (but it always nails 30-60 for some reason). You'd never notice, however, unless you put the watch right up to your face and stare at it like a crazy person like I did before writing this. That's a very small amount of play in the movement, and for this price, is impressive. You get the same movement in even the more expensive Eco-Drive divers, by the way (for example, the one with the bright blue face, and the famed "Eco-Zilla"). The minute and hour hands, however, are exact on this, every time.]

As to the date window, I like it small. Generally I know what day it is. I don't need that information taking up half of my watch face. But I even like the font used on it. Looks like it could be used on a Navy decompression table.

The bezel is 60-clicks, compared with Seiko's 120, so it feels a little rough. But I like having it at 60. It's more precise. I'm not going to need to time a half-minute of anything with the rotating bezel, ever. [EDIT: I make perfect pasta by using the bezel, by the way. Impresses the girlfriend. Thumbs up here. Also times parking meters. No more tickets for me. Furthermore, the bezel "breaks-in" after a little while and the spring doesn't feel so choppy.]

The band is really soft. It's not hard or stiff, like others say. It feels like high-grade dive rubber. But I have smaller wrists, it could press into some bigger guys'. The watch looks great on smaller wrists, by the way, due to it's smaller size. Doesn't make me look like a wuss. Big plus there. [EDIT: And due to the friction grid-pattern on the back of the band, it doesn't move around on the wrist at all. It's planted on there now.]

And did I mention the case IS ONE SOLID PIECE OF STAINLESS STEEL? I can't get over that. I haven't seen that on any watch in any price-range. [EDIT: The case is specially cast in a mold from molten steel, not machined.] Just cool. Citizen is so confident in their engineering, they make it that much harder to open. And for water to get in, remember, 300M = 1,000 ft.

Cons:

The screw-down crown. Don't get me wrong, it has a quality feel (doesn't wobble when pulled out) and does it's job. But I'm not going to lie, it's hard to get it screwed down and hard to get it unscrewed because of the steel lip that surrounds it. Seiko's design on the classic SKX007K, for example, is better. However, remember that quartz movement? You'll only need to unscrew that crown about 5 times a year, to set the date for the months without 31 days.

The bezel has printed numbers. These seem pretty durable, whatever they're made of, and I haven't scuffed them yet even after some direct hits. But how much harder would it have been to have the numbers pressed into the bezel?

The crystal is not recessed in the bezel much at all. It'll pick up dings/surface scratches. But hey, it's an affordable watch. It deserves some character. Do not get that crystal anywhere near a brilo-pad though, say, when washing dishes. You'll regret it. It ain't sapphire. [EDIT: And it ain't 2K so who's complaining?]

Summmary:

All in all, great watch with a lot of character. Keeps great time. Comfortable = Not one sharp edge on the thing. Not heavy = forget it's even there. No battery change! One piece of steel! Eco-Drive is fail-safe technology. This watch will give you at least 20 years of maintainence-free time-keeping. And look good doing it.