Do consumers really hate having a screen on their wrist, or is the industry trying to convince us we don’t need one for tracking fitness and health? Well, either way, it looks like the competition in the screen-free health and fitness tracker space is heating up.
The latest to join the screen-free bandwagon is the veteran of wearables, Garmin, with its CIRQA. Garmin is calling it a “smart band,” which, in the back of my mind, goes, “Great, another product name coined.”
Anyhoo, the Garmin CIRQA Smart Band is the company’s first screen-free health and fitness tracker, designed for users who want comprehensive health monitoring without the distraction of a display. Even so, CIRQA is meant to complement Garmin’s smartwatch lineup, not replace it (but of course, wink). Garmin wouldn’t be so silly as to cannibalize its own market.
The device offers up to 10 days of battery life and, perhaps most importantly, requires no subscription to access its health and fitness features. Like the Fitbit Air, the Hume Band 2.0, Polar Loop, and others, it features a fabric band. Interestingly, though, it isn’t limited to the wrist; it can also be worn on the upper arm.
So what can it do? For starters, CIRQA continuously tracks heart rate, Body Battery, Pulse Ox, stress, skin temperature, sleep, heart rate variability (HRV), respiration, and naps, with all data synced to the Garmin Connect app. In addition, it supports women’s health tracking, including menstrual cycle and pregnancy monitoring, and can integrate with the Natural Cycles birth control app. However, a separate subscription is required for Natural Cycles.
Those cover the health side of things. On the fitness front, it automatically detects and records activities, learning from user edits over time to improve recognition accuracy. Users can also manually track more than 80 activities, including running, walking, and yoga, using the band’s single side button.
As with the rest of the screen-free health and fitness bands, the downside is that there’s no at-a-glance information. If you want your stats, you’ll have to reach for your phone.
Anyhoo, the device also boasts additional training features, including Training Readiness, Training Status, VO₂ Max, HRV Status, Workout Benefit, and Recovery Time. It does not have built-in GPS, but it does support Connected GPS via a paired smartphone, which also enables LiveTrack location sharing.
If you are sold, the Garmin CIRQA Smart Band is available now in a choice of colors for US$199.99.
Images: Garmin.
