Garmin Enters Whoop’s Territory with New CIRQA, Targeting Its Weakest Point

Wearing a device on your wrist to get to know your body better usually means accepting one more screen. The race pace, notifications, alerts, and summaries appear there, inviting us to constantly check what is happening. Garmin now joins a proposal that other manufacturers had already explored: eliminating that part of the experience without giving up continuous tracking. Your new bracelet collects data during the day and night but centralizes your consultation on your mobile. It does not seek to show more things, but rather to offer another way of living with personal monitoring.

The protagonist of this story is called CIRQA Smart Band, Garmin’s first screenless smart bracelet designed to bring together daily monitoring, sports, and well-being in the same device. In Spain, we can order it from July 24 for 199.99 euros with two sizes, a fabric strap adaptable to the wrist or arm, and up to ten days of autonomy. This isn’t Garmin’s first foray into this field; in 2025, they launched the Index Sleep Monitor, focused primarily on sleep and recovery.

Technical Specifications of the Garmin CIRQA

Using CIRQA means accepting that we won’t be able to check what you’re recording just by glancing at your wrist. There’s no dial to navigate, menus to scroll through, or data that appears when you raise your arm. To consult them, we will need to open the application on mobile, where we can review the information collected and, during an activity with the phone’s GPS, check basic data like distance and pace. On the band, we will only find a side button configurable to start our favorite activity.

Garmin’s Approach: Measuring Without a Screen

The device can recognize activities like walking or running by itself and save them for us to review later. It adapts its classification over time based on our corrections to improve its accuracy. You can also manually track more than 80 activities, assigning one of them to the side button. However, you will depend on the phone’s GPS for outdoor activities, as it does not integrate its own. With the mobile connected, it also allows us to share our location via LiveTrack.

The bracelet maintains continuous heart rate monitoring and can alert us to unusually high or low values. It also estimates oxygen saturation and records stress levels, skin temperature, steps, calories, and intensity minutes, offering insights into our energy reserves throughout the day. Additionally, it monitors menstrual cycles and pregnancy, providing retrospective estimates of ovulation along with habits like alcohol or caffeine consumption.

Ambitious Nighttime Features

At night, the CIRQA becomes even more ambitious, breaking down sleep stages, detecting naps, calculating an overall score, and offering personalized rest estimates. It also tracks the regularity of sleep schedules, alignment with the circadian rhythm, breathing patterns, and HRV status, culminating in a smart vibration alarm. These metrics can help us identify shifts in our sleeping patterns, but cannot diagnose apnea or other sleep disorders.

During training sessions, its value lies in transforming accumulated data into actionable insights. It helps gauge whether it’s appropriate to train harder or ease up based on sleep and recovery metrics. You can follow your VO2 maximum and understand how each training session affects your overall fitness while knowing when to rest before your next effort. A specialized mode is included for wheelchair users, albeit with adapted functions and no VO2 maximum metrics.

Pricing and Comparisons

Garmin emphasizes that CIRQA does not require a subscription, providing access to sleep, recovery, training status, and Body Battery metrics without any recurring fees. However, some advanced features, like artificial intelligence integrations, fall under Connect+, which may incur additional charges. Unlike Whoop, where membership is essential, Garmin’s CIRQA offers optional features without compromising basic function.

Comparing it to other devices, the Fitbit Air offers basic tracking without fees at 99.99 euros. Similarly, Polar’s Loop, priced at 179.90 euros, also has no subscription. Amazfit’s Helio Strap targets training and recovery without mandatory payments, highlighting that a screen-less device is not enough to differentiate itself; price and functionality must be scrutinized too.

For 199.99 euros, the CIRQA serves those who prefer to maintain continuous monitoring while switching from a smartwatch to a more discreet cloth band. It caters to users wanting to reduce distractions without sacrificing data and is especially suitable for Garmin users already embedded in their ecosystem.