I’ve always thought of screenless fitness trackers as a healthy anecdote of smartwatch overload—the kind of device you wear when you want metrics, but not sound. So when an early Garmin Cirqa leak started making the rounds online, I thought it was just another entry in the growing list of “upcoming” screenless wearables we’ve been seeing lately.
At first glance, the Garmin Cirqa leak looks exactly like what you’d expect from Garmin entering this space: a small, screenless wearable focused on continuous health tracking. Heart rate, sleep, activity—all the usual passive metrics, except for the display.
But then the price details came.
At around $510, Garmin’s rumored screenless fitness band may be the most expensive entry in the screenless tracker category. in it. Soon, ‘simplicity’ no longer feels like the right word.
What the Latest Garmin Cirqa Leaks Really Tell Us
Let’s get our bearings for a moment.
The Garmin Cirqa is a wristband designed for 24/7 health tracking—heart rate, sleep, recovery, all the usual stuff. Garmin Cirqa has previously leaked, including images that appeared briefly on Garmin’s site before disappearing again, suggesting two sizes, two color options (Black and French Grey), and a possible spring launch window. Just enough information to make sure it’s there.
The latest leak—seen by NotebookCheck via Ukrainian retailer Stylus Store—goes even further. It lists Cirqa with a product image and a price tag of 22,399 UAH (about $509), with a pre-order discount bringing it closer to $454.
And yes, as NotebookCheck points out, vendor leaks can be nasty. Sometimes we can take them at face value, but sometimes it’s just AI images and someone hitting “publish” early. So I don’t treat it as gospel, yet.
But anyway… the number is here now. And it’s hard to see.
Alternatives to WHOOP are everywhere
To understand why $500 sounds so strange, you have to understand where this category started. WHOOP basically defined the concept of a screenless fitness tracker—a small wrist wearable without a screen, designed for athletes who want continuous recovery data without the distraction of a smartwatch. It found its audience, built a loyal community, and made “acquisition tracking” feel like a legitimate product category rather than a niche obsession.
Others followed. Polar launched the Loop for $199—no registration, eight-day battery, 24/7 heart rate—and made a clear statement about affordability. Amazfit’s Helio Strap came in at $99, also without registration, with 27 sport modes and a 10-day battery life. And recently, Google introduced the $99 Fitbit Air, a screenless band with advanced health sensors, AFib detection, and SpO2—also $99—that just went on sale this month.
So this is no longer an emerging category. It’s competitive, with price expectations already set by many real products that real people have already worn.
The Real Shock Isn’t the Device—It’s the Cost
So what exactly does $500+ get you for a screenless device?
At $509, Cirqa won’t just be the most expensive screenless tracker—it’s in its class. The Fitbit Air and Amazfit Helio Strap both remain at $99. The Polar Loop is $199, no subscription. Even Whoop’s premium WHOOP Life plan—which includes ECG and blood pressure monitoring—runs $359 a year. And that’s a subscription, not a hardware purchase.
So what does $500 buy you for a screenless device? The leaked image shows a standard cloth strap with a small sensor unit. At five times the price of its closest competitors, the spec sheet will need to make some serious excuses.
How Screenless Fitness Trackers Are Becoming a Premium Fitness Trend
Here is the strange nature I can’t stop thinking about. Screenless fitness trackers started as this very clear idea: less is more.
No screen meant no notifications, no dopamine hits from checking your stats 40 times a day. The whole point was that the data should stay in the background—available, not wanted.
That was easily the product. But somewhere, simplicity has become expensive. WHOOP relies on subscriptions, which turn a small piece of hardware into a long-term financial commitment. Polar and Amazfit went the other way and basically said: this doesn’t need to cost a lot of money at all.
And now Garmin seems to be doing something else entirely—treating the screenless design as a premium feature instead of a base one. It is a form of regression. The few things the device shows you, it may cost you a lot. “Simple” is starting to feel coded for luxury, whether it’s intentional or not.
Why Garmin Still Has a Very Real Advantage
Garmin has nearly 45 million active users, many with years of health and training data already within the platform. For them, Cirqa is a natural addition. There is no new app or new start here. That lock is real, and it doesn’t need to win the entire market.
Final Take: Simple, But Expensive
The original idea was simplicity—fewer distractions during your run, but you still get those important stats at the end of your run.
But the Garmin Cirqa leak, especially at around $509, makes it sound like the category is pulling somewhere else entirely. I see it as pricing power dressed up as minimalism.
Garmin can still pull this off—but at $500+ for a band without a screen, they’re going to need to give us something to look at…even if there’s nothing to look at.
Lauren has been writing and editing since 2008. She loves working with text and helping writers find their voice. When she is not typing on her computer, she is cooking and traveling with her husband and two children.