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One month with the Garmin Cirqa on my wrist, alongside my Apple Watch. Day and night, from crossfit to climbing.
I bought it mostly for sleep tracking, because sleeping with a watch on is a hard no for me. I might as well tell you right now: things didn’t go as planned.
The specs in short
To give you an idea of what we’re dealing with, here is the core of the Garmin spec sheet :
- 27 x 47 x 9 mm at 14.8 g (around twenty grams with the fabric band)
- 5 ATM water-resistant, swimming pool included
- Continuous optical heart rate (one measurement per second), SpO2, skin temperature
- No screen, no built-in GPS: the GPS goes through your phone
- Bluetooth and ANT+, with heart rate broadcasting
- Claimed battery life: up to 10 days (on paper)
- €199.99, no mandatory subscription, even though Garmin Connect+ unlocks certain features
Foolproof comfort
For once with Garmin, the nylon band is actually comfortable to wear. Fenix owners will understand. It’s lightweight, you forget it’s there. And it traps way fewer bad sweat odors than the Apple Watch’s nylon band.
Garmin also released an armband, but it’s out of stock. And unlike the US version, you can’t order the Cirqa directly with the armband. Too bad.
Why am I talking so much about comfort? Because for me, sleeping with a watch is out of the question. Sleeping with this band, or the armband, is a whole different story. 😴
The ideal companion for the Apple Watch
What I like is being able to wear it during activities where a watch gets in the way or risks getting damaged. In crossfit , wearing a watch is complicated with hand grips. When climbing, I don’t have to worry about scraping the watch case against the wall anymore. The band itself doesn’t cause any issues.
And as I said earlier, sleeping with a band is much more pleasant than with a watch. Huge plus if you want to track your sleep without sacrificing your nights.
If you correctly set up the data source in Apple Health, you get your steps, sleep, and activities directly in the app. Everything syncs to your watch as soon as you put it back on your wrist. Your rings fill up as if you’d never taken it off. If you’re still wondering which ecosystem to choose, I talk about it in my Apple Watch vs Garmin comparison .
Still, the sync isn’t perfect. I’ve had different calorie counts between the Garmin app and Apple Health several times. Same goes for average and max heart rate, which got revised downward when transferred to Health, and I have no idea why.
Sensors falling behind
The band features older sensors, not the ones you find in the Fenix 8 and 9.
The sampling rate—meaning how often the sensor measures your heart rate—seems spread out compared to what Garmin usually does on a watch. I assume this is to preserve battery life. As a result, when you sync an activity, the curve in Apple Health is less smooth than in the Garmin app.
During crossfit, I experienced dropouts: the sensor lost my heart rate due to my movements. The armband could probably fix this.
My real disappointment is sleep. It was the main reason for my purchase, and Garmin is lagging behind: the band is unable to detect when I wake up properly. I already talked about consumer wearable sleep tracking in Don’t buy a smart ring , and the Cirqa doesn’t make me change my mind.
If you want to get a precise idea of the sensor’s reliability, for both cardio and sleep, The Quantified Scientist published a complete scientific review of the Cirqa . It’s worth checking out.
Battery life and heart rate strap mode
The battery life disappointed me: a bit less than a week, nowhere near the claimed 10 days. Weird for a gadget that’s almost the size of a watch, but with no screen.
On the plus side, though, is the heart rate broadcasting mode. Cycling? Start your computer, pair the band like a heart rate strap, and your heart rate displays on your computer. A real benefit that saves you from wearing a chest strap, which is never comfortable.
Who is the Cirqa for?
Do you already have a Garmin watch that tracks your activity and health, and want to add sleep tracking to it? This band isn’t for you. Like most gadgets of its kind, watch or ring, it’s not good enough to track your sleep reliably, so I can’t recommend it just for that. As an addition to a Garmin watch, opt instead for the HRM 600 heart rate strap: it brings new metrics and tracks your activity without the watch on your wrist.
Do you wear a classic watch or an Apple Watch (my case)? The Cirqa tracks your activities, steps, and sleep thoroughly. It complements the watch nicely during sessions where I don’t want to wear it, but it doesn’t replace it. And since its sleep tracking doesn’t add much value, I don’t think I’ll use it at night, even though sleeping with a watch is still worse.
The broadcast mode I mentioned earlier is my exact use case: I’m not a fan of chest straps, and the Cirqa lets me track my cardio live on my Garmin Edge during bike rides.
Then there’s the case where you have a Garmin watch and a heart rate strap, but you can’t stand the strap. The Cirqa can replace it. Competitors do the same for less, but this way you stay in the Garmin ecosystem, with sleep tracking as a bonus.
So, is it worth the cost?
If you are looking for reliable sleep tracking, no. That was my reason for buying it, and it’s my main disappointment.
If you are looking for a companion to your watch for workouts where it gets in the way, or a comfortable replacement for your heart rate strap, the Cirqa does the job.
The Cirqa is a good watch companion, not a good sleep coach.
Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’ve tested the Cirqa or if you want to share your thoughts on this article.
