Garmin CIRQA Smart Ring leak suggests major strategy U-turn
Garmin appears to be preparing its debut smart ring, with a filing uncovered in a certification database for a 'CIRQA Smart Ring'.
The listing—first picked up by the blog Garmin News—was approved by Indonesia's e-Sertifikasi certification database and filed by PT Garmin Indonesia Distribution on August 12th.
It lists a fitness device called the 'CIRQA Smart Ring', built in Taiwan and registered under certificate number '125338/DJID/2026'. Interestingly, a scan through the database suggests this has actually now been removed, but the eagle-eyed folks over on Reddit managed to grab the screenshot below.
The listing—first picked up by the blog Garmin News—was approved by Indonesia's e-Sertifikasi certification database and filed by PT Garmin Indonesia Distribution on August 12th.
A certification entry alone doesn't guarantee a launch is close, but the naming choice is hard to ignore. This lands only a few weeks after the unveiling of the brand's first screenless fitness tracker, the $199 CIRQA Smart Band.
Worn on the wrist or upper arm, it tracks heart rate, Body Battery, Pulse Ox, stress, skin temperature, and sleep staging via an Elevate Gen 4 sensor, all surfaced through Garmin Connect rather than a display.
A ring with the same branding suggests Garmin could be looking to build out a broader family of low-profile, screen-free devices rather than treating the band as a one-off.
That idea is also reinforced by earlier CIRQA trademark filings in Europe and Canada that appeared this year, which used language broad enough to cover body-worn sensors generally, not just wrist-worn ones.
A potential U-turn on smart rings
If Garmin is indeed preparing another member of the CIRQA clan, it would be somewhat at odds with the position senior executives laid out to Wareable just two years ago: that the wrist would always beat the finger for serious health tracking.
At the Garmin Health Summit in Prague back in 2024, Joe Schrick, VP of Fitness, and Scott Burgett, Senior Director of Health Engineering, told PULSE by Wareable they saw little reason to chase the ring form factor.
Schrick argued the wrist would keep winning in terms of fidelity: "The fidelity of the data on the wrist is going to be better [than a ring] because you have more power, you have more LEDs, you have more sensors, you have more battery life."
Comfort, he said, was the ring's one real advantage—"but that's probably where I'd stop."
Burgett held a similar view, arguing that a ring's signal-to-noise ratio could be matched on the wrist "in a low-motion state"—and potentially beaten, due to the larger power budget.
Could we see a Cirqa smart ring launch soon?
Whether that thinking has genuinely shifted inside Garmin, or the ring is an internal project that never reaches shelves, is impossible to say from a single regulatory filing alone.
We likely won't hear any official word for some time, and there are no indications of a render, pricing, or release window associated with this particular certification.
However, if CIRQA moves on to the finger in late 2026 or early 2027, it would mark a fascinating strategic shift from Garmin.
It would move Garmin's ecosystem into direct competition with Oura, as well as with brands that offer wearables across multiple form factors, such as Samsung and Apple.
We'll be watching this one develop over the coming months, so stay tuned.
