Garmin announced the CIRQA Smart Band today, the company's first screenless health and fitness tracker and an unmistakable shot across Whoop's bow. Priced at $199.99 with no subscription required, the CIRQA delivers most of the advanced health metrics found on Garmin's flagship watches in a fabric-wrapped package designed to be worn around the clock without demanding your attention.
The pitch is straightforward: pay once, own the data. Whoop's entry-level One plan costs $199 per year, and the device stops working entirely if you cancel. The CIRQA undercuts that model from day one and costs nothing from year two onward.
What the CIRQA Tracks
The band uses Garmin's Elevate Gen 4 optical sensor to monitor heart rate, heart rate variability, Pulse Ox, stress, skin temperature, and respiration. Sleep tracking covers stages, nap detection, and a personalized sleep score. Body Battery, Garmin's energy level estimate, sits at the center of the value proposition. The metric becomes more useful when worn continuously rather than just during workouts.
On the training side, CIRQA includes Training Readiness, Training Status, VO2 Max, HRV Status, Workout Benefit, and Recovery Time. These are the same features available on watches like the Forerunner 970 and Fenix 8. The band can track more than 80 activities, with automatic detection for common ones like walking, running, and cycling. A single side button starts a favorite activity without reaching for your phone.
There is no onboard GPS. For outdoor activities, the CIRQA relies on Connected GPS via a paired iPhone or Android device. The band also supports heart rate broadcasting over ANT+ and Bluetooth, which means existing Garmin users can wear it during training and still feed live data to their cycling computer or gym equipment.
Design and Battery
The CIRQA uses a ComfortFit fabric band and can be worn on the wrist or upper arm depending on the activity or sleeping preference. It weighs 20 grams with the band, making it lighter than a Whoop 5.0 but heavier than the 12-gram minimalist devices emerging in the market. Water resistance is rated at 5 ATM, enough for swimming and showering.
Battery life is rated at up to 10 days, slightly less than Whoop's claimed two weeks but ahead of the Fitbit Air's roughly one-week figure. There is no screen, no Garmin Pay, no music storage, and no smart notifications. That is the trade-off.
Colors and Availability
The CIRQA launches in four colors: Black, Captain Blue, French Gray, and Mauve. Each comes in two sizes, S/M and L/XL. Replacement wrist bands cost $49.99, and a dedicated upper arm band runs $59. Garmin is also offering three additional band colors, including Citron Gray, Dark Olive, and French Blue, for those who want to swap out their look.
Orders open July 24 at $199.99 in the US, £179.99 in the UK, and €199 in Europe.
The Competitive Landscape
Garmin is positioning the CIRQA as a companion device rather than a replacement for its watches. Susan Lyman, Garmin's VP of consumer sales and marketing, said the band "complements our lineup of popular smartwatches and wellness monitors, allowing users to transition smoothly between their Garmin devices throughout the day." For athletes who don't want to sleep in a 50-gram GPS watch, the CIRQA fills a specific gap.
But the real target is Whoop, whose subscription-only model has drawn backlash over upgrade policies and lock-in. Wearables without recurring fees are having a moment, and Garmin is betting its established ecosystem and one-time pricing can peel off users who have grown tired of paying indefinitely for health data.
The CIRQA uses Garmin's older Elevate Gen 4 sensor rather than the Gen 5 found in recent products, which means there is no ECG support at launch. Whether that matters depends on the user. For those who want continuous HRV tracking, Body Battery, and Garmin's training stack without another display on their wrist, the CIRQA checks the boxes at a price point that only needs to be paid once.
