Garmin has launched its first-ever fitness tracking band without a display — the CIRQA Smart Band (stylised as Cirqua). Compared to a smartwatch, this device won't alert you with buzzing notifications or glowing screens to pull your attention away from whatever you're doing.

Instead, the Cirqa is designed to quietly monitor your health and fitness around the clock, feeding all your data straight to the Garmin Connect app on your phone whenever you fancy checking in.

It's comparable to the recently released Fitbit Air by Google, as well as the Whoop Band 5.0 — all built to be a tracking band without a glowing screen. However, its main difference is that you won't need to pay for a monthly subscription to unlock any of its health tracking features.

Be one of the first to own the Cirqa Smart Band from Garmin

You can pre-order this new wearable now, with shipments beginning on July 24. The Garmin Cirqa Smart Band is built for distraction-free, all-day wellness tracking with a screen-free design and up to 10 days of battery life. It's meant to monitor heart rate, stress, sleep, Body Battery, Pulse Ox, skin temperature and more without a subscription. The band also automatically recognises workouts, while connected GPS and advanced fitness metrics like VO2 max, HRV status and recovery insights are available through the Garmin Connect app.

Garmin doesn't charge a penny beyond its purchase price of £174.99. Meanwhile, Whoop doesn't charge a one-off price but requires an ongoing membership just to access your data.

Whoop also offers three tiers of annual memberships — One (£169.99), Peak (£229), and Life (£349) — each tailored to different goals, whether that's fitness performance, long-term health or advanced heart monitoring.

For those willing to pay for the top-tier Life plan, there's also the Whoop MG, which adds medical-grade ECG readings and daily blood pressure estimates straight from your wrist.

Google's Fitbit Air sits somewhere in between, relying on the free Google Health app but pushing its Health Coach if you're looking for deeper fitness insights.

This includes the Gemini-powered Artificial Intelligence (AI) chat interface that proactively creates and adjusts workout plans based on your recovery. Google's Health Coach feature also lets you photograph gym equipment or workout boards to log exercises, which is a neat touch. Prices for Google's paid subscription cost £7.99 per month. You'll also pay the one-off cost of £84.99.

Without a paid subscription, Cirqa is designed to monitor your heart rate, stress levels, blood oxygen (Pulse Ox), skin temperature and Garmin's own Body Battery energy score — which tells you how much juice you've got left in the tank throughout the day.

For the fitness-minded, there are VO2 max readings, HRV status, training readiness scores and recovery guidance. It can automatically detect and log workouts without you lifting a finger, and it learns over time — the more you confirm or tweak its activity guesses, the smarter it gets.

You can also manually track over 80 different activities and connect to your phone's GPS for outdoor runs, rides and walks.

Sleep tracking is properly detailed too, with stage breakdowns, sleep scores and nap detection.

Susan Lyman, Garmin's Vice President of Consumer Sales and Marketing, said: "We purposefully created CIRQA Smart Band for those who are passionate about staying healthy and active."

For comparison, the Fitbit Air takes a similar approach by tracking your heart rate round the clock, monitoring blood oxygen levels, picking up on sleep stages, and even offering atrial fibrillation alerts — something the Cirqa doesn't mention.

Cirqa's battery life is meant to last for up to 10 days on a single charge, and the fabric band comes in seven colours including Black, Mauve and Captain Blue. You can wear it on your wrist or as an armband, depending on what feels most comfortable.

The Fitbit Air's battery life tops out at roughly a week, which is a few days shorter than Garmin's offering. On the plus side, the Fitbit Air offers quick charging — just five minutes plugged in gives you a full day of power.

On the other hand, Whoop 5.0 takes things up a notch in terms of battery life — lasting more than 14 days between charges. Its sensors capture data every single second with what the company says is 10 times greater power efficiency, and you can wear it in multiple spots across your body rather than just on your wrist.

You can begin pre-ordering the Cirqa Smart Band now, with shipments beginning on July 24.