In 2026, Citizen Watches of Japan will celebrate 50 years of producing timepieces with electronic movements powered by light. To commemorate the occasion, Citizen has introduced the Citizen Eco-Drive Photon collection and will hold a gala event in New York City’s beautiful Guggenheim Museum. Citizen has a lot to be proud of when it comes to innovation and advancing technology, especially for wristwatches (but the company makes all sorts of things, including machines that help make watch parts). With that said, the 2026 50th anniversary celebration of Eco-Drive will heavily emphasize emotions, art, and lifestyle. For someone like me, the year of the 50th anniversary of light-powered watches by Citizen is actually at least three anniversaries in one. That is especially true for those of us who are more fascinated by the technology and history of Eco-Drive. I have been buying light-powered watches for years, and am entirely delighted that solar watches are not only still advancing, but also very trendy with timepiece wearers around the world.
Even in the arena of smartwatches, companies are fascinated with the prospect of solar charging. While not entirely capable of powering a smartwatch, companies such as Garmin have multiple smartwatch products that use light charging to help reduce the intervals between plugging in your smartwatch for a recharge. Light-powered wristwatches may have existed for 50 years now, but they haven’t always been as good as they are today. It is still an area where micro-mechanical and electronics engineers are hard at work. Current efforts at further advancing light-powered watch technology focus on areas such as how to capture more energy from light and seeking new ways to increase battery life. Citizen may not be the only company producing light-powered watches, but it is the first and arguably still the best at the craft.
In 2016, I visited Citizen in Japan and viewed how many of its Eco-Drive watches were being produced. Much of the technology and processes are still secrets. The brand didn’t show me certain rooms, and in some instances, it even had blue tarps over machines in order to keep their purposes concealed. One of the major innovations by Citizen isn’t the solar movement itself, but rather the dial. Citizen has perfected the art of dials that do not appear as though they are designed to allow light to pass through. This is important from a style perspective, because it is uncommon for a photovoltaic cell to make for an attractive watch dial. Citizen uses complex plastics and prism-effect shapes to create most of its Eco-Drive watch faces. The trick is that light does not pass directly down to the photovoltaic cell that resides just under the face. Rather, light is bent and redirected by prismatic surfaces on the dials themselves. No, not all of the light reaches through, but Citizen’s technology is so efficient that Eco-Drive movements today can be powered by fluorescent office lights. That was not always the case. A major reason that Citizen decided to adopt the “Eco-Drive” name (as opposed to “Solar-Tech,” which preceded it) is that its light-powered watches were no longer limited to recharging from only bright sunlight. The history of light-powered watches from Citizen is one of constantly trying to increase the performance, discover new helpful technology, and increase the reliability and functionality of its light-powered wristwatch technology.
A Triple Light-Powered Anniversary For Citizen: 1976, 1986, and 1996
It all started 50 years ago. In 1976, Citizen released the small-production Crystron. This was a watch that, for the first time, included a photovoltaic solar cell on the dial. It was not called Eco-Drive, and its system was much more limited than even basic Eco-Drive watches of today. Nevertheless, it was the world’s first wristwatch with a solar-powered movement, and it began a quiet revolution. Today, all three of the major Japanese watchmakers produce movements capable of being charged by light. With that said, Citizen is the most technologically advanced member of this group when it comes to such products. Citizen is also the only company I know of that specifically brands its light-powered models with a trademarked term such as “Eco-Drive.”
While one of the Citizen moments in 2026 is the 50th anniversary of the Crystron, it is also the 30th anniversary of when the “Eco-Drive” name first came to the United States in 1996. The term “Eco-Drive” debuted a bit earlier in Japan (probably in 1995). This was a pivotal moment for Citizen because Eco-Drive wasn’t just about practicality; it was about emotions and personal values. The concept connected well with the still-popular importance of environmentalism and sustainability (because Eco-Drive’s light-rechargeable batteries eliminate the need to throw away as many batteries). Solar watches are also going upmarket. Citizen produces higher-end “Swiss Made” light-powered movements for companies such as TAG Heuer, via its Swiss La Joux-Perret manufacture. Solar watches aren’t just legacy products. They are highly relevant technology products that continue getting better with time.
Prismatic Dials & Battery Chemistry: The Hidden Science Of Light Capture
One of the earliest problems with solar-powered watches was the battery life. It took years of increasing movement efficiency (i.e., decreasing power consumption), as well as waiting for new battery chemistry technologies to emerge, before Citizen could produce something as advanced as most Eco-Drive movements today. One of the most recent new technologies was the introduction of the Eco-Drive caliber E.036 quartz movement, which features a total of 365 days of battery life with accuracy of about 10-15 seconds per month. The standard Eco-Drive movements tend to hold about half that, so about six months of power on a full charge. We take that for granted today, but it was not until lithium-ion and other modern technologies arrived to make smaller batteries that much more resistant to energy seepage (leaks), and allowing them to hold greater charges. The third anniversary in 2026 is the 40th anniversary of when Citizen Solar-Tech movements started to have longer battery lives. Until then, most Citizen light-powered watches featured less than a week of total battery life. Starting in 1986, Citizen broke the week barrier, eventually settling on about six months of battery life for the standard light-powered watch by the time that the “Eco-Drive” name was introduced in the mid-1990s.
From Super Titanium To Swiss Adoption: Solar As A New Luxury Standard
What I love about Eco-Drive and other solar-powered watches is that the technology is not a price or luxury barrier. While there are a great number of extremely inexpensive Eco-Drive timepieces intended for mainstream consumers at very fair prices, Eco-Drive technology also exists in timepieces that cost several thousand dollars each. The wristwatch market is also seeing a fascinating renewed interest by Swiss companies for solar-powered timepieces. I already mentioned TAG Heuer above as one example. Two more are Swatch Group’s Tissot (with “in-house” photovoltaic dials), as well as Cartier (whose recent light-powered Tank watches apparently didn’t work very well, because they lacked Citizen’s technology to allow enough light to enter the dials to recharge the batteries). Somewhere in the middle of that price range are Citizen’s limited edition Eco-Drive Photon watches, which are meant to honor the 50th anniversary of the company’s light-powered achievements.
As far as limited-edition models go, Citizen is being ambitious and making a healthy number for each of these two models (there will be 10,000 units between the two references). Even if these aren’t to your taste (I actually think the Eco-Drive Photon is very neat-looking), there are going to be plenty of other ways to get a modern Citizen Eco-Drive timepiece to celebrate this moment in time. What I most like about the Citizen Eco-Drive Photon watches is that they aren’t an homage to a particular previous Citizen product, at least not as far as I can determine. Vintage reissue watches are still popular, and making one would have been an understandable way for Citizen to look back at the 50th anniversary. Instead, Citizen (and this is why I admire the brand so much) is looking toward the future with the Eco-Drive Photon. It includes a complicated dial design that is inspired by one of the most famous scientific nature-of-light tests of all time, known as the “double slit experiment.”
Quantum Dial Design: The Double Slit Experiment On The Wrist
What is the double slit light experiment? It has been performed multiple times in history as scientists have been able to use increasingly advanced tools. The point of the experiment is a clever means of trying to determine if light is a wave or a particle. Many people who have studied physics or optics know that scientists consider light to be both a wave and a particle. Perhaps more precisely, light is a phenomenon that behaves both like a wave and a particle. It was not until quantum mechanics was introduced that there was a greater understanding of what the double slit experiment’s outcome meant. How did light behave both as a particle (each particle is known as a “photon” of light) and a wave? The answer had to do with the superposition concept in quantum mechanics. Because particles of light were potentially in multiple superpositions at the same time, they behaved like a constant wave. At the same time, they were able to make individual impressions as a distinct particle. The outcome is that within a light beam, there is light everywhere at once, but also in no particular position all the time. The position of the particles when measured is determined by the observer, and what that even means leads to some of the stranger elements of our physical world, in my opinion. In any event, the engineers who work on Eco-Drive at Citizen seem to be at least as interested in light science, hence the “Photon” name of the product and the dial, which has been inspired by the famous double slit light experiment.
The two limited-edition Citizen Eco-Drive Photon watches differ in their finishing, but share the same modestly-sized 39.6mm wide Super Titanium case that is water resistant to 50 meters. The cushion-shaped case is 9.9mm thick and has a domed sapphire crystal over the dial. The iridescent dial colors on the lower layer are not the result of a pigment, but rather from small reflections of light on the surface facets. Citizen calls this material a “film,” and it helps make the Eco-Drive Photon dial much more memorable. The reference BJ6560-53W version of the Eco-Drive Photon has a naturally finished (gray) Super Titanium case with a blue-accented dial. The reference BJ6569-59X version of the Citizen Eco-Drive Photon costs a little bit more, and has a Super Titanium case that has been Duratect DLC-treated with some elements in a black color and others in Citizen’s newer “amber yellow” tone. I, for one, think that Citizen should come out with a version of the Eco-Drive Photon in a case and matching bracelet that is entirely in the Super Titanium Duratect DLC amber yellow color. That sounds very lovely to wear.
Despite the wild dial and the novel case design, the dial of the Eco-Drive Photon is very legible and traditional. This has the readability of a sports watch with the wearability of a classy lifestyle product. I am very glad that Citizen developed an entirely new product for the Eco-Drive 50th anniversary. Compared to the original light-powered Crystron watch of 1976, the Eco-Drive Photon is a remarkably more capable and advanced project. 2026 isn’t so much the 50th anniversary of Eco-Drive (closer to the 30th anniversary of the term), but rather a celebration of the fact that Citizen has dedicated 50 years to originating and constantly technologically improving upon the concept of a light-powered timepiece. According to Citizen, these models will be available in fall 2026. The Citizen Eco-Drive Photon BJ6560-53W is priced at $995 USD and limited to 5000 pieces. The Citizen Eco-Drive Photon BJ6569-59X is priced at $1,195 USD and limited to 5000 pieces. For more information, please visit the Citizen website.