Garmin Cirqa review: a screenless health band with no clear reason to buy it

Garmin has released Cirqa, a screenless wearable positioned as a rival to Whoop, whose valuation reached roughly $10 billion at the start of 2026. The device is a small plastic puck attached to a woven fabric strap, weighing just over an ounce, and charges via Garmin's proprietary USB-C cable.

Inside, Cirqa houses a battery rated for about 10 days of use, an optical heart rate sensor and an accelerometer, but it has no built-in GPS, similar to competing devices. It tracks heart rate, respiration, stress, activity, sleep, menstrual cycle and body temperature around the clock, with all data accessed through the Garmin Connect smartphone app.

Strengths and weaknesses

The review praised the accuracy of Cirqa's automatic activity detection and Garmin's dependable data quality, including a sleep score and a recommended bedtime. However, the single control button proved frustrating — attempting to silence a wake-up alarm could accidentally trigger manual activity recording instead.

The main criticism centers on software. While Garmin markets Cirqa as requiring no subscription, deeper AI-generated insights, food logging and coaching are locked behind the paid Garmin Connect+ tier. Without it, users mainly get the long-standing Body Battery score, a 100-point figure summarizing the body's energy reserves.

Price and competition

Cirqa costs $200, more expensive than Garmin's own Vivosmart band ($150) and Fitbit Air ($100), but cheaper than Whoop 5.0 subscriptions, which start at $199 per year. The review suggests that smart rings such as Oura or Ultrahuman may offer better value for those seeking a screenless option. Overall, Cirqa is described as a competent but unconvincing product lacking a compelling reason to choose it over cheaper or more feature-rich alternatives.