Garmin has announced CIRQA Smart Band, its first smart band with no screen. The device tracks health and fitness data 24/7 and sends everything to the Garmin Connect app on your phone. There are no ongoing fees beyond the purchase price of $199.99.
The band is aimed at people who want detailed health data without the constant notifications and glances at a wrist display that come with a typical smartwatch. It has a fabric band, a single button on the side, and up to 10 days of battery life. You can wear it on the wrist or as an arm band, depending on what you’re doing or how you sleep.
Garmin already sells a wide range of smartwatches, from budget-friendly trackers to high-end multisport devices. The CIRQA sits outside that lineup as something different: a passive, always-on monitor that steps back and lets your phone do the displaying. That positions it alongside products like the Oura Ring and the Amazon Halo, both of which prioritize background health tracking over screen interaction. The no-subscription angle is a direct contrast to some rivals, and it’s a selling point Garmin is leaning into hard.
On the health monitoring side, CIRQA tracks a solid set of metrics. Garmin lists the following as included:
- Wrist-based heart rate
- Body Battery energy monitoring
- Pulse Ox (blood oxygen)
- Stress tracking
- Skin temperature
- Sleep stages, sleep score, and nap detection
- Heart rate variability and respiration during sleep
Women can also use it to track their menstrual cycle and pregnancy. Skin temperature data collected during sleep can improve period predictions and provide ovulation estimates. The band also syncs with Natural Cycles, an FDA-cleared birth control app, though that app requires its own separate subscription.
Fitness tracking is more capable than you might expect from a screenless device. CIRQA can automatically detect and log activities without any input from the user. It recognizes more than 80 activity types, and it gets smarter over time based on how you confirm or edit those auto-detected sessions in Garmin Connect. If you want to manually start a specific activity, one tap of the side button does it.
More advanced fitness features include:
- Training readiness score, which tells you whether your body is ready for a hard effort or needs rest
- HRV status and VO2 max estimates
- Training status to track fitness progress over time
- Workout benefit and recovery time estimates after each session
- Connected GPS via a paired iPhone or Android phone for outdoor runs, walks, and rides
- LiveTrack, which lets contacts follow your location in real time during a workout
The absence of a screen does create one real limitation: you cannot see any of this data on your wrist in the moment. Everything lives in the app. That trade-off is the whole point of the product, but it will not suit everyone. Runners who want pace data mid-run or cyclists checking heart rate zones on the fly will still need a watch. CIRQA is built for people who check their stats after the fact, not during.
The band is available now in seven colors: Citron Gray, Mauve, French Gray, Dark Olive, Captain Blue, French Blue, and Black. Garmin notes that all health tracking features are consumer wellness tools, not medical devices, and are not intended to diagnose or monitor medical conditions.