Just as smartwatches — like phones — were starting to get dull, with incremental upgrades every year and people beginning to tire of wearing screens, along comes a plethora of high-profile category disrupters to help people track their fitness without getting notifications on their wrists.
These ‘focus’ wearables are becoming more popular by the week, and I’m seeing more and more screenless trackers in gyms, on the start lines of local races, and out and about in town. It’s no longer unusual to see someone wearing an analog watch on one hand, and a fabric-wrapped fitness band on the other — or a discreet smart ring on the index finger.
Without further ado, check out my picks of the coolest screenless fitness trackers to buy right now, from the trending Garmin Cirqa and Google Fitbit Air to little-known gems like the Amazfit Helio Strap and RingConn Gen 3 — then read on to find out why you should get one.
The best screenless fitness trackers of 2026
Why get a screenless fitness tracker?
Screenless smart bands and smart rings are having a moment. They aren’t necessarily new — Whoop and Oura have been around for ages, but both are traditionally premium devices relying on subscriptions. Now, with the release of other smart rings and high-profile competitor bands from the likes of Google and Garmin, people have lots of different options for every budget.
Cheaper devices include the super-popular Google Fitbit Air and the lesser-known Amazfit Helio Strap wristbands. You can watch my video review of the Google Fitbit Air below — it’s lovely and discreet, weighing just five grams.
Subscribing to the AI-powered premium tier is totally optional too, while the Amazfit Helio Strap is perfectly serviceable without a subscription at all.
My pick of the bands, however, is the recently launched Garmin Cirqa. The Cirqa is a great device, taking the basic Whoop concept and adding a tactile start-stop button as well as stronger haptic feedback. It also interfaces with the excellent Garmin Connect app to give you useful training information without as much clutter as Fitbit’s Google Health app and its AI chatbot tier. No subscriptions here, either, unless you want coaching.
You can watch our video review of the Garmin Cirqa below.
As for smart rings, Oura and Samsung remain the twin jewels of this category, but they’re facing competition from upstarts like RingConn and its RingConn Gen 3. Our reviewer said the Gen 3 had “excellent battery life, comprehensive health tracking and a comfortable design, all without a monthly subscription”.
However, the Oura Ring 5 is a new launch for this year, and despite its premium price, the Oura platform has become an impressive AI-powered health tool with all sorts of features, from bloodwork insights to user-generated tags like ‘bath’, ‘meditation’ or ‘meeting’ providing context to your fluctuating stress levels. Check out our Oura Ring 5 video review below.
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matt.evans@futurenet.com (Matt Evans)
