- The Garmin Cirqa, Garmin’s long-rumored screenless smart band, is breaking cover
- Trademark filings have been spotted with governing bodies for the US, Canada, and EU, suggesting an imminent launch
- Google launched its screenless band with a redesigned, AI-powered app — but I hope Garmin doesn’t follow suit
Garmin‘s long-rumored screenless smart band, designed to compete with the rising trend of ‘focus wearables’ such as the Google Fitbit Air and Whoop bands, is on the way. We initially thought it was the Garmin Index Sleep Monitor (pictured above), but that turned out to be a different product entirely.
The screenless fitness band is instead likely to be named the Garmin Cirqa, according to leaks; it’s going to be a cool new deviation from Garmin’s existing fitness watches list, and we now have more evidence that it’s going to be launching soon.
Garmin has been filing trademarks for the name ‘CIRQA’ (styled in all caps, but we’ll refer to it as Cirqa in text the same way we do Whoop, which is styled on its official branding as ‘WHOOP’), with an entry to the US Patent and Trademark Office database spotted earlier this year.
However, Gadgets & Wearables have also found trademark filings for relevant governing bodies in Canada and the EU, adding fuel to the rumors that a launch may be imminent.
All the filings connote a body-worn sensor rather than a communication device, suggesting the Cirqa isn’t just a new smartwatch: it’s exclusively for health and fitness.
This is quite exciting: at the moment, people looking for screenless, discreet wearables have no shortage of options, from the Oura Ring 5 to the Fitbit Air to last year’s Polar Loop strap. Clearly, the category and people’s interest are growing, and a top-quality device from Garmin would sell like hot cakes.
However, I hope Garmin doesn’t repeat one aspect of Google‘s Fitbit Air launch. At the same time as the Fitbit Air came out, Google transformed the Fitbit app into Google Health, eliminating the last of its community features like shareable badges and challenges, controversially redesigning the app, and turning the Premium tier into an AI ‘Health Coach’ chatbot.
Garmin’s user base would revolt if such dramatic changes came to the Garmin Connect app. There was widespread outrage last year when Garmin introduced a Premium tier with AI-powered features — the community is a passionate and outspoken one that loves its technology, and any hint that features are being scrapped or the app transforming to better conform to the AI-first nature of most screenless trackers would be met with an enormous outcry.
Garmin will have to make its Cirqa band work within its existing watch-focused ecosystem, unless it wants to launch a separate app or risk losing some frustrated customers.
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matt.evans@futurenet.com (Matt Evans)
