Is Garmin Cirqa good? I wanted to know if Garmins Fitbit Air rival is
accurate so I tested it against a 'gold standard' electrical heart rate strap

Date:
Wed, 22 Jul 2026 09:03:10 +0000

Description:
After months of leaks, the Garmin Cirqa finally dropped, and I was one of the first to test its capabilities.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Garmin Cirqa smart band has finally dropped The screen-free smart band costs $199.99 / 179.99 / AU$299.99 I tested its accuracy and found it to be very good Its here! After months of leaks, the Garmin Cirqa smart band (styled CIRQA by Garmin) has finally arrived. I got a chance to check it out and wear it for a workout at the official launch event. A sleek-looking fabric smart band in four colors (French Grey, Black, Captain Blue and Mauve) wrapped around a plastic puck, theres no denying it looks a lot like a Whoop, Polar Loop or a thicker
version of the Google Fitbit Air .

The puck packs an Elevate V4 heart rate sensor, the same one used on some of the best Garmin watches . The more powerful Elevate V5 was apparently too big for the size of the unit, according to Garmin. The tracker offers some of Garmins best features including Health Status (Garmin's feature that monitors your vitals overnight), Body Battery, Training Readiness, pulse ox, womens health tracking, and stress tracking and lots more. The Garmin Cirqa has a 10-day battery life, and the same proprietary charging port as the brand's watches. As expected, there's no onboard GPS, but it can piggyback off your phone's GPS. Latest Videos From Watch full video here:

Size-wise, it's slimmer than the Whoop MG but thicker than the Fitbit Air. (Image credit: Future) Many other screenless trackers have no buttons at all, but here Garmin has stuck with its tradition of creating smartwatches with tactile buttons, and added a button to the plastic chassis. You may like It looks like Garmin is finally preparing its Fitbit Air-style band for launch Garmin just accidentally revealed pricing for its own Fitbit Air rival Garmin Cirqa certification suggests it lacks built-in GPS

You can press this button to start and stop a workout, but you can also rely on automatic activity tracking for this. Garmin states this will improve the longer you wear the band, and it's also possible to edit workouts in the Connect app to ensure the right movements are correctly interpreted. For example, if you run a lot, the Garmin Cirqa will interpret the swinging of your arms and acceleration as a running workout and start one automatically. No subscription... or is there? (Image credit: Future) The band is subscription-free at its base price. Many screen-free trackers from the likes of Whoop and Oura rely entirely on subscriptions, but there is an element of monthly payment creeping in there. You can access Garmin Coach to get personalized training plans, but only if you subscribe to Garmins premium Garmin Connect+ tier. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.
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This is the first time Garmin Coach has been locked behind the Garmin
Connect+ paywall previously, it either came with a watch or it didnt.

Chrissy Wheeler, Garmins EMEA Senior Product Manager for Fitness, was at the launch and spoke about the Cirqa. She said: You do have the option for
premium content under Garmin Connect+. There are additional features, if you want to, you can pay for those, like all of our coaching side of things with this device. For some of our higher-end devices, these come included, but because this doesnt have a screen, you need Garmin Connect+ to access the coaching size, our nutrition app as well as Active Intelligence and AI insights.

The key thing is that disconnect. People wanting to disconnect from phones, electronics on a day-to-day basis, but still want those metrics. Its ideal, firstly, for people getting into fitness for the first time, but also for a lot of our athletes. Cycling, for example. They might record all their workouts on an edge, but theyre missing out on that 24/7 recovery
information, Body Battery, that goes alongside it. What to read next More Garmin Cirqa smart band leaks have appeared this time on a Garmin website
The Google Fitbit Air finally breaks cover, and it heralds a new era of screenless fitness tracking The Garmin Forerunner 170 was found to be extremely accurate during my treadmill test despite packing Garmin's older heart rate sensing technology How I tested Image 1 of 2 (Image credit:
Future) Polar H10 results (Image credit: Future) Garmin Cirqa results After the product presentation, we were taken through a short HIIT workout by a trainer at the venue, for which I opted to wear the Polar H10 heart rate monitor . The Polar H10 is an electrical heart rate monitor worn on the
chest, rather than an LED-based heart rate monitor worn on the wrist like the Cirqa.

Its the gold standard for heart rate accuracy, used by many athletes all across the world. As fitness trackers use heart rate as the basis for almost all their metrics, its the perfect device to use as an accuracy benchmark.

During my workout, the Polar H10 recorded an average heart rate of 155 beats per minute, or bpm. The Garmin Cirqa recorded an average heart rate of 153 bpm, just 2bpm shy of the other device and well within the statistical margin for error. Graphs also aligned very closely.

Based on this first early test, Im satisfied with the Garmins accuracy, but
of course more testing will be required. Stay tuned. The best Garmin watches for all budgets Our top picks, based on real-world testing and comparisons

Read our full guide to the best Garmin watches 1. Best overall: Garmin Venu
4 2. Best premium: Garmin Fenix 8 3. Best budget: Garmin Vivoactive 6 Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

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