Garmin has announced one of its most important products in recent memory, the Garmin Cirqa. It’s an entry into a relatively popular category of wearables: screenless fitness trackers.
It’s an alternative to the Fitbit Air, the Whoop band or, for those looking a little deeper, something like the Polar Loop or Amazfit Helio Strap.
The main appeal of the Garmin Cirqa is much the same. He won’t require your attention during the day. Most of the time you should forget it’s there, but it records a lot of statistics that you can view in the Garmin Connect phone app.
It will track your sleep, recovery, VO2 fitness metrics, activity levels and more.
The Garmin Cirqa costs $199.99, making it one of the most expensive screenless trackers currently available. However, it can do some things that some of its competitors can’t, and there’s no mandatory ongoing cost – unlike Whoop.
Here are 10 things you should know about the Garmin Cirqa.
1. It is available in four colors.
There is only one Garmin Cirqa at a time and four color options for it. The brain of the Cirqa tracker is always black, at least at launch, but it comes with a strap in one of four colors.
These are black, Captain blue, French gray and mauve. The straps are also available in sizes S/M and L/XL. These are fabric bands that don’t use a watch clasp, but use a Velcro-style design that allows you to choose exactly how tight you want the band to be.
2. Garmin Circqa has a physical button.
Most screenless trackers have no buttons or real way to interact. Garmin Cirqa has one side button.
This is used to manually start tracking a “favorite” activity that you specify in the Garmin Connect app. Otherwise, workouts will be tracked automatically or can be started manually in the phone app. Auto-detected activities obviously include “running and walking”, but I don’t have a complete list of supported auto-tracked activities yet.
3. It is ready for swimming, but not diving.
Like most of its peers, the Garmin Cirqa is rated at 5 ATM water resistance, which is on par with more affordable Garmin watches.
You don’t need to remove this bandage when you shower or go to the pool. However, the Garmin Cirqa is not as good for diving or snorkeling at deeper levels.
4. Garmin Cirqa is wider than Fitbit Air
The Garmin Cirqa uses a 24mm wide band that doesn’t completely cover the 27mm wide center block.
This matches the Whoop band and also means it’s significantly wider than the relatively thin Fitbit Air. The strap width of this tracker is only 18 mm.
5. Garmin Cirqa: technology is familiar, but not top-notch
All Core Garmin wearables use some form of Elevate’s heart rate (and related) sensor technology. The array on the back of the Garmin Cirqa appears to be consistent with that found in watches like the Forerunner 170 and other more affordable models.
It has two LED droplets with red LED elements needed to measure blood oxygenation and four ambient light sensors. Top-tier wearables like the Garmin Fenix 8 have an additional four LED units that help improve signal reliability during your workout. However, you can still get good results from Cirqa’s more simplified sensor command.
Garmin Circus rear view
Garmin
6. Garmin Circa battery life: 10 days.
Despite the lack of a screen, the Garmin Cirqa isn’t one of Garmin’s most durable wearables. It’s rated for 10 days of use on a single charge and uses the same 4-pin charging connector found in almost all Garmin wearables.
The 10-day endurance falls somewhere in the middle of Cirqa’s competitors’ claims, which range from a week to 14 days for Whoop 5.0.
7. Garmin Cirqa is better for fitness than most
The Garmin Cirqa has two important hardware-related fitness features that are missing from all screenless trackers. Firstly, it supports Connected GPS.
This is where the wearable device connects to the GPS signal from your phone to provide much more accurate pace and distance readings for activities like running.
And this also results in creating a map for your activity logs. This will work when you launch an activity from the Garmin Connect app, and should hopefully also work when you set the appropriate activity to launch manually using the side button. I’ll check it out when I get my hands on the Garmin Cirqa.
It can also broadcast a heart rate signal. This is useful for some more advanced trainers or platforms such as Zwift.
8. Subscription is not required.
Like most other Whoop competitors this year, one of the main advantages is that you don’t have to sign up for an ongoing subscription to Garmin Cirqa. With an investment of $199.99, you’re all set.
However, subscribing to Connect+ unlocks some additional features, including a library of workouts accessible through your phone, advanced workouts, breathing exercises, and LiveTrack location/activity tracking for friends and family.
Ultimately, many of these things are better suited to a full-fledged Garmin watch than a Cirqa. It can also be used to send temperature readings to the Natural Cycles platform, which perhaps suits Cirqa better than marathon training.
9. Garmin Circa is mostly plastic.
The body of the Garmin Cirqa is a “fiber reinforced polymer”. This is how the company describes the plastic used in almost all of its watches, at least to some extent.
This wearable is not designed to be the center of attention, so light weight is more important than chic design. It weighs 14.8g (module only), which is less than the Whoop 5.0 and more than the Fitbit Air (5.2g).
10. Available to order from July 24th.
Many Garmin devices are available for purchase as soon as they are announced, but the Garmin Cirqa presentation will take place a few days before the July 24 order date. At the time of writing, you can’t even pre-order, so set a reminder on your phone if you want to purchase one of the first wave of trackers.