Review of a 'proper' diver's watch.

Here is a recent pickup.


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This is a pretty unusual watch. It is a Citizen Cyber Aqualand NX. I think the NX stands for Nitrox. Citizen describe it as a watch dive computer and it does indeed have many diving functions and capabilities.


“Its powerful dive computer provides a log memory for up to 100 Scuba dives and 100 skin dives as well as full compression data. Other dive measurement functions include:

Alarms for ascent rate, depth alarm, maximum depth and all errors for Nitrox diving

Water temperature display and memory

Water thermometer

Calculation of no fly time and residual nitrogen in the body.

Measures surface interval

Automatic altitude adjustment

An important feature in the watch is its nitrox features that is 0% setting (22-50%) by 1% increment and also calculates and displays the Oxygen Toxicity Time. It displays warning as well.

It also displays the maximum P02 warning (1. 6 fixed). These are very important features."



It does a ton of other diving stuff as well. e.g. It constantly checks the atmospheric pressure and automatically alters dive profiles to high altitude when diving at altitude.

When at a calculated decompression stop it gives the time remaining and also shows a graph of your actual depth as against the stop depth to show how much you are drifting.

The no fly time takes account of the number of previous dives, length and depth etc and you get an automatic countdown to a fly time.

It has separate logs and settable dive profiles, for skin dives, air dives and Nitrox dives.

Pretty impressive for a watch.

The watch has a number of the usual time and chronograph functions. In mode order it has, Time mode with two different screens,

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World time.

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A countdown to arrival time to a destination settable years in advance if you want.

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Alarm with 15 different settable alarm sounds or silent if you just want the alarm to display on screen.

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99 hour chronograph.

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99 hour countdown timer again with settable alarm sounds or silent.

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Battery and function check modes.

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Some of the dive screens, of course a lot only show when actually on a dive.



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You can set the watch to low power mode manually and even turn the display off with a couple of button presses. Presumably you would do this if not using the watch for some time.
The watch is constantly checking atmospheric pressure in normal mode and this must be a fairly large consumer of power.

You can set the contrast of the display to many levels.

You can also download data to a computer, or similarly equipped watch, or upload changes and dive profiles using an infrared transmitter on the dial, if you wish to set changes that way rather than just use the watch.

The watch uses a rechargeable battery and has its own charging cradle.
If you are diving every day and using the other functions, the battery lasts over a month before dropping into low power mode. How long the battery lasts with much more sparing use I will find out.

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When I bought the watch, the seller said that the watch would only work when attached to the charging cradle and it appeared it needed a new rechargeable battery.
I checked out the position regarding this battery and found that it was unobtainable, even from Citizen. The base battery can still be found but with different connectors for different watches.

I made the buyer a lower offer therefore, saying I would look to to try and adapt a different battery to fit this watch but of course there would be no guarantee of success.
He accepted the offer and I bought a battery for a different watch and removed the connectors from that and the duff NX battery and attached those connectors to the new battery and then refitted it and low and behold everything fired up beautifully, well, apart from the alarm, so I had to fiddle with the connector but eventually got it working perfectly and it charges as it should as well.
Fitted a greased gasket, so it should be good to go and perform as designed.

So I am pretty pleased with this, the watch was not cheap 20 years ago when new, running at about £800 The watch is in good condition for a twenty year old watch a few marks here and there but nothing really significant, the crystal is unmarked.

The watch is chunky but is dwarfed by some of the modern day watches like G Shocks. It is 47 mm wide and 50 mm to the lugs and 15 mm thick. So given its functionality, not bad at all.

The strap is perforated, suitable for use in its water environment.

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It has a very deeply sculptured case back and a nice bright EL display.

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Some wrist shots.

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I think this could be described as a proper diving watch. It seems it could be used on its own without a diving computer, though I doubt many would do, the modern diving computers are highly functional and will probably be bigger and have bigger screens than this.

Any thoughts out there?



Mitch

I don’t know much about diving but that is a really cool watch. Thanks for the write up.

That is so over-engineery cool. Thanks for posting.

Interesting watch - To be honest it seems like it's more of a 'watch style dive computer' than a 'dive watch'.

There's not a LOT it doesn't do that low end dive computers do.

Citizen seemed to make a lot of hybrid watch/dive computers at one point, but I'm not sure they still do (I did see a watch from them with a depth sensor on eBay recently advertised as new and it looked modern, so maybe they do).

M

Great read and a good save
I love this style of watch and have the Seiko Scuba myself
The JP 2000 have the dive computer
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I like the shark graphic/icon. What's it for?

I enjoy your posts, Mitch.

I live in the eternal hope that one day you will write about a watch that I would really want to own/wear.

Love these Citizens. I had a JV that I really liked too :-)

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Thanks, fascinating read.

Sent from my CLT-L09 using TZ-UK mobile app

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That's pretty cool. I wish my old Aladdin Pro Ultra did MOD for NO2! Actually. That might be MOD for O2. Is that looking at the max depth before the partial pressure of O2 becomes toxic, as it seems to be about 70m (or pp of 1.6).
The DCIEM algo that Citizen used was pretty interesting, from memory - quite conservative. Canadian, perhaps?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bedlam

Love these Citizens. I had a JV that I really liked too :-)

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Here is the one I use to own (JV0000-28e , not the same model , but similar ). Great watches , wish I hadn't sold mine . Cool looking watch , OP .:thumbsup:

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Broussard

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That's pretty cool. I wish my old Aladdin Pro Ultra did MOD for NO2! Actually. That might be MOD for O2. Is that looking at the max depth before the partial pressure of O2 becomes toxic, as it seems to be about 70m (or pp of 1.6).
The DCIEM algo that Citizen used was pretty interesting, from memory - quite conservative. Canadian, perhaps?

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The watch does use the Canadian Dive Tables which are more conservative and therefore must have a bigger safety margin than US Navy tables.

"DCIEM is an abbreviation for "Defense and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine" which belongs to the Canadian Government and has been studying diving since 1939. CYBER AQUALAND Nx adapts DCIEM algorithm, which is certified by DCIEM and based on DCIEM decompression theory."


The watch has obviously been used for diving in the past as it has a number of dive log data recorded and these cannot be deleted, even by full reset.


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Mitch

Quote:

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Originally Posted by beechcustom

I like the shark graphic/icon. What's it for?

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It is just a daily graphic on one of the three selectable timekeeping display screens.

You could have this one instead with location and battery indicator.


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You can change the daily graphic, using the PC software, from a preloaded menu of many different graphics, you can have up to 366 different graphics loaded at any one time and could have a different one every day. You can draw your own and download those if you wish. You can set special dates in an 'anniversary' mode and assign different graphics to that day. In dive and charging modes the graphic is of a scuba diver in action.

I have managed to find a 64bit version of the software and have loaded it on to my Windows 10 machine.



Mitch

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RAJEN

I enjoy your posts, Mitch.

I live in the eternal hope that one day you will write about a watch that I would really want to own/wear.

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It's horses for courses and all that.

My preference is for quartz watches, though I do own double figures in mechanicals. I also tend to post mainly about more unusual watches that are not seen much on the forum. For instance I have an Omega Speedmaster Pro 'Moonwatch' but I have never posted about it because it has been done a thousand times on here and there is nothing really left to say.

Something like this watch though has probably never been seen on here before and it's one of the best watches of its genre ever made, with many potential talking points. People seem to like to comment mainly on more mainstream stuff though, stuff they already own (or something very similar).

I'll probably persevere with my threads, though it is a bit frustrating when you spend a lot of time preparing the post to find that hardly anybody is interested in commenting about it.



Mitch

Indeed , great write up, and as you say nice to see something completely different:)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have this very same watch on full bracelet....Absolute tank of a watch. Still have all the boxes and accessories, but sadly not functioning. I had the same issue with the battery many years back. I did manage to find an alternative and change it, but I never used the watch to its full potential. The deepest I got was swimming in the hotel pools. Purchased during a stop over in Abu Dhabi....Sadly now residing at the back of a drawer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr Juggles

I have this very same watch on full bracelet....Absolute tank of a watch. Still have all the boxes and accessories, but sadly not functioning. I had the same issue with the battery many years back. I did manage to find an alternative and change it, but I never used the watch to its full potential. The deepest I got was swimming in the hotel pools. Purchased during a stop over in Abu Dhabi....Sadly now residing at the back of a drawer.

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You should resurrect the watch, shame to leave it languishing, this was an expensive watch when new.

Doubt that I will be using the potential of the watch anytime soon, I am currently writing this from a hospital bed as I was taken in following a heart attack yesterday.
You certainly never know what is round the corner.


Mitch

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mitch

You should resurrect the watch, shame to leave it languishing, this was an expensive watch when new.

Doubt that I will be using the potential of the watch anytime soon, I am currently writing this from a hospital bed as I was taken in following a heart attack yesterday.
You certainly never know what is round the corner.


Mitch

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I'm sorry to hear that. I do hope not to serious?.....By the looks of it, you're awake and eyeing up your next purchase on here?
All the best mate, and get well soon.