I love mechanical watches. I’ve built up a small collection over the years and genuinely enjoy wearing them.
I’ve also worn a Garmin fitness watch almost every day for the last four years.
Those two things don’t get along. I want all the health, sleep, and recovery data Garmin collects, but I can’t bring myself to be the guy wearing two watches at once. Some people can pull off a Rolex on one wrist and a Garmin on the other. I’m not one of them.
In fact, I often keep my Garmin in my pocket when I’m wearing a mechanical watch – just to keep my step count for the day.
For years I hoped Garmin would solve this with a ring. Instead, they made the $199.99 Cirqa Smart Band.
It’s not a ring, but it comes with a feature that might actually be better: you can wear it on your wrist or move it up to your bicep and hide it under a sleeve entirely. That means you can wear a mechanical watch like normal and still let the Cirqa do its job without taking up wrist space.
Today I’m going to give my thoughts after wearing the Cirqa for the last couple of weeks, share what I like, what I don’t, and help you figure out if it’s right for you.
What Is the Garmin Cirqa?
The Cirqa is a screenless health and fitness tracker. No watch face, no touchscreen, no stream of notifications buzzing your wrist all day. Almost everything happens inside the Garmin Connect app.
It automatically detects certain activities, or you can hit the physical button to start recording one manually. It supports over 80 activity profiles, uses your phone for connected GPS, and Garmin rates it for up to 10 days of battery life.
At $199.99, it fits nicely within Garmin’s product lineup. It’s a lot cheaper than Garmin’s premium watches but gives you more health and fitness data than you’d get from Garmin’s basic golf watches. It’s also a clear alternative to Whoop or Oura, minus one big thing: there’s no required subscription to access the core features.
Want to track Garmin data without having to wear a Garmin smartwatch? The new Cirqa is the absolute best way to do it.
First Impressions of the Garmin Cirqa
Taking the Cirqa out of the box, it honestly feels very similar to a Whoop Band. The nylon strap is similar to the strap that comes with the Venu X1 (and is available for other Garmin watches).
It’s soft, it dries quickly, and overall is very comfortable. Due to the Velcro design, it’s very easy to set it to the exact tightness you want on your wrist, which I really appreciate.
In the box you’ll find the Cirqa, a Garmin charging cord, and some instructions – nothing fancy.
I appreciate that Garmin has been consistent with their charger across basically all of their modern wearable devices. While obviously a USB-C to USB-C charger is the best for convenience, there are limitations with that in regard to waterproofness. But continuing to use this charger is the next best option.
The device itself, while not huge, is slightly thicker than I expected it to be.
It doesn’t feel as bulky as my Fenix 8, but in some ways I did notice it more than when I was wearing the svelte X1 on a regular basis.
That said, once I got used to the change in device on my wrist, it ultimately faded away, and it has been comfortable for daily wear.
Setup is exactly what you’d expect from Garmin. Open Garmin Connect, add device, done in under a minute. If you’re already in the Garmin ecosystem, there’s no second app and no separate dashboard holding half your data hostage. That alone is a real advantage over Whoop or Oura.
But who should buy the Garmin Cirqa, and is it right for you? For me, there are 5 main reasons to pick one up. I’m going to share those here, and do it from a golf-specific lens to help you figure out if this is right for you.
1. You Want Garmin’s Best Health Features for $200
The Cirqa packs in a surprising amount of Garmin’s top-tier health tracking: Body Battery, Training Readiness, Training Status, Recovery Time, HRV Status, VO2 Max, Sleep Score, Sleep Coach, stress tracking, skin temperature, Pulse Ox, and respiration tracking.
Compare that to Garmin’s golf lineup. The Approach S44 has almost none of these features. You need the Approach S50 just to get sleep tracking and Body Battery, and Training Readiness doesn’t show up until the $699 Approach S70.
Pair a basic Approach S12 with the $199 Cirqa, and you get simple on-course yardages plus the full health ecosystem, for a couple hundred dollars less than an S70 alone. If you already wear a Fenix or S70 all day and night, though, the Cirqa isn’t adding much you don’t already have.
2. You Want the Data Without Staring at Your Wrist
Golf tech has a way of piling up. GPS watches, rangefinders, swing sensors, launch monitors, phones. It’s possible to surround yourself with so much technology that you forget to just play golf.
The Cirqa has no screen, so there’s nothing to check between shots. Garmin’s pitch is basically: track all day, review later. Arccos has leaned into the same idea with Air, betting that people want the data without wanting to interact with it mid-round. The Cirqa fits right into that mindset for anyone who wants their heart rate, stress, and activity tracked without a smartwatch running the show.
3. You Want to Wear a Mechanical Watch Without Losing Your Garmin Data
This is the one that actually got me excited.
When I wear my Fenix 8, I get a complete picture of my day: sleep, recovery, stress, workouts. But every day I wear it is a day I’m not wearing one of the watches I actually like collecting.
The Garmin Cirqa Smart Band fixes that. You can wear it on your opposite wrist, and it’s subtle enough not to look like you’re wearing two watches. Move it to your bicep, and it disappears under a sleeve completely, which might be even better than the ring I originally wanted.
This isn’t just a watch-collector problem either. Maybe you want a dress watch for a wedding or dinner without losing a day of data. Maybe you just don’t like the look of a chunky sports watch unless you’re actually exercising. The Cirqa gives you that flexibility without leaving a hole in your Garmin Connect history.
There have been at least 3 occasions where I was getting ready to go out to dinner over the past 2 weeks, and went to put on a watch, and had a genuine moment of happiness when I realized I could wear the Cirqa and still get my data.
For me, this alone is worth the price of admission. And considering it’s one of the few activity trackers like this that doesn’t require a subscription? It makes it much easier to justify.
4. You’re Already Living in the Garmin Ecosystem
I’ve tested a lot of Garmin gear over the years, from golf watches to launch monitors, and the biggest advantage of staying in that world is that everything lands in one place.
The Cirqa doesn’t start a new health profile. It adds to the one you already have. So you could wear it overnight for sleep, switch to an Approach S70 for your round, then go back to the Cirqa (or a mechanical watch) for the rest of the day. That kind of switching is much harder to pull off with Whoop or Oura, since both live in their own separate ecosystems with their own scores and trends.
And Garmin does an excellent job of handling this. Literally just take one device off, put the other on, and tracking will continue in Garmin Connect seamlessly.
If years of your data already live in Garmin Connect, starting over somewhere else isn’t appealing.
5. You Like Whoop or Oura, But Not the Subscription
The Cirqa is obviously going after Whoop and Oura’s territory: passive, always-on health and recovery tracking. The difference is you’re not locked into a monthly fee to use its core features. Garmin does offer an optional Connect+ subscription with extra perks, but you don’t need it for the Cirqa’s fundamental sleep, stress, and training data.
I personally haven’t found a whole lot of value in the Connect+ subscription as it sits currently. For a little bit less, however, I’ve found using Garmin with the Bevel Health app to be a game-changer. I’ll do a separate post on Bevel at some point, but it uses AI to not only make your data easier to digest and track, but it makes it more enjoyable to do so as well.
I won’t pretend it’s a perfect one-for-one replacement. Whoop’s coaching and strain scoring are more developed, and Oura’s ring form factor and sleep experience are still some of the best out there. But the Cirqa gets you most of the core idea: wear something discreet, collect the data, review it in an app, without adding another bill or splitting your data across platforms.
How Does the Cirqa Work for Golf?
The Cirqa has a Golf activity profile, but don’t confuse that with a golf GPS. It won’t show yardages, maps, or club recommendations. It’s simply recording your round as a physical activity while collecting the same health and fitness data it collects the rest of the day.
That makes it useful for three types of golfers:
- The golfer who doesn’t want tech running the show. Rangefinder in hand, no smartwatch, no extra screen. The Cirqa tracks the physical side of the round without changing how you play.
- The golfer with an entry-level Garmin watch. An Approach S12 covers the basics on course but skips almost all of Garmin’s health tools. Add a Cirqa and you get a complete setup for less than the cost of jumping straight to an Approach S70.
- The golfer who only wants a golf watch on the course. Not everyone wants to wear a golf watch to dinner or to bed. The Cirqa lets you wear your golf watch strictly for golf and something smaller the rest of the time.
If you already wear a Fenix or S70 around the clock, the Cirqa won’t add much. Its whole value is flexibility and comfort, not new functionality.
How is the Garmin Cirqa Battery Life?
Garmin rates the Cirqa for up to 10 days, though features like all-day Pulse Ox and connected GPS will eat into that. For a screenless band, that feels about right and is accurate for my experience.
Battery seems to go down about 10% a day, and a little bit less if I haven’t tracked many activities.
Either way, the battery life is really good, and should be a bit longer than most smartwatches.
Final Thoughts on the Garmin Cirqa Smart Band
The Cirqa isn’t a cheaper Fenix, and it’s not trying to replace the Approach S70 or outdo Whoop and Oura outright. It fills a much narrower gap: giving you most of Garmin’s health, sleep, and fitness ecosystem without making you wear a full smartwatch.
For me, that’s exactly the problem I’ve been trying to solve for years. I can wear a mechanical watch and keep the Garmin data I’ve come to rely on, and thanks to the bicep option, I can do it without a device on both wrists (although I still have yet to pick up a bicep band, I’ll update this review when I do).
For golfers, I like that it collects useful health data without putting another screen in front of you mid-round. If you want yardages and maps, buy a dedicated Garmin watch. If you want serious training tools, buy a Forerunner or Fenix. But if you want Garmin to quietly track your day and then get out of the way, the Cirqa does exactly that. And it does it at a price that is significantly less than nearly all other Garmin watches.
Want to track Garmin data without having to wear a Garmin smartwatch? The new Cirqa is the absolute best way to do it.
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I've been waiting for a device like the Garmin Cirqa for years. But it won't be for everyone.
The Garmin Cirqa is a legitimate competitor to Whoop, Oura, and FitBit. The best part? It doesn't have an annual subscription like those do. For $199 you're getting Garmin tracking and metrics that are typically reserved for their mid to higher end watches, and if you're someone who wants the data, but doesn't want to look at a screen on your wrist all day - this is the device you've been waiting for.
The Good
- A good size, comfortable, and a nice variety of color options
- Very easy to switch between this and other Garmin devices within the Garmin Connect App
- Multiple features like Training Readiness, Body Battery, and VO2 Max, that you won't find in Garmin's similarly priced watches
- No Subscription
The Bad
- Feels slightly larger than I expected it to on the wrist
- It's a little more cumbersome to track activities in the app, than directly on your wrist
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