WearableSignal

Suunto Flex Band leak: what the rumoured €179 price leaves unanswered

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 21:48:21 GMT

Suunto's rumoured Flex Band now has a reported European price of €179 and a possible launch window near the end of 2026. Neither is an announced Suunto offer. For anyone considering a screenless tracker, the unresolved subscription terms matter as much as the hardware price.

The new details come from an October 31 report by Wearable Fans. The site credits reader Xiang Yuan with supplying photos and information about the device. It says the casing carries the name “Suunto Flex Band” and the model number HR264. The pictured hardware has an optical sensor underneath, fabric straps and a separate charging cradle with a USB-C cable.

Gadgets & Wearables also reported the name and €179 figure, while explicitly treating the price as information from a source. That coverage does not establish whether the reports have independent sources. Suunto has yet to confirm the product details described in them.

What would €179 buy?

The leak gives potential buyers a price to think about, but it does not settle the cost of ownership. The published details leave open whether the band would work without a membership, which features might be paid extras, and whether any trial would expire.

That changes the comparison. If the functions you want remain available after buying the band, €179 could be the main expense. If those functions require an ongoing plan, the first-year and renewal costs would need to be compared separately. There is no announced Flex Band plan to calculate yet.

The photos also cannot establish battery life or sensor accuracy. A charging cradle shows how a device receives power; it says nothing about how often you will use it. Likewise, an optical sensor does not demonstrate how well the band will track intervals or a rough road ride. Our screenless tracker comparison covers the alternatives already on the market.

AI Coach is a separate announcement

Suunto does have a new software service that makes this rumour more interesting. Its official explanation of AI Coach describes an assistant that uses workout history, sleep and recovery data to answer training questions. It can also create structured workouts and routes for saving in the Suunto app and syncing to a watch.

The announced rollout began with Race 3S on October 15. Suunto says Race 3S activation through December 31, 2026 includes three months of AI Coach, with access expanding to more watches in early 2027.

Those terms apply to the announced watch rollout. They do not confirm Flex Band compatibility or an included coaching subscription. A future band could be useful for collecting data while a watch is off the wrist, but Suunto would need to explain how the two devices work together before buyers could rely on that arrangement.

What to check before buying

For a Suunto watch owner, the most useful launch detail may be how the app combines recordings. Can the band handle overnight tracking while the watch handles workouts? What happens when both record the same session? A second device is easier to justify if it fits into the history you already use.

For someone buying their first tracker, battery life and access to the recorded data deserve attention alongside the price. The current leak is a reason to follow Suunto's next announcement. It is too early to budget for a subscription-free €179 recovery tracker or count on delivery before the end of the year.

Garmin Edge 1060: Interesting New Features, or Is This Really an Edge 1050+?

Tue, 20 Oct 2026 15:15:23 GMT

On October 20, 2026, Garmin introduced the Edge 1060, the latest generation of its flagship cycling computer. At first glance, the update doesn’t look particularly revolutionary: the same 3.5-inch LCD display with a resolution of 480 × 800, up to 20 hours of battery life, and the familiar set of training metrics.

However, Garmin has significantly changed how riders interact with the device. The Edge 1060 introduces comprehensive voice controls, seven physical buttons, improved navigation, and several interesting additions for training and group rides.

It’s also 11.5 mm shorter and 19 g lighter than its predecessor, the Edge 1050.

Personally, I think Garmin should have called this the Edge 1050+, not the Edge 1060. The improvements are welcome, but they feel more like a refinement of the previous generation than an entirely new product.

Let’s look at the most interesting features, what’s actually changed compared to the Edge 1050 and 1040, and whether upgrading makes sense.

1. Voice Control Is More Capable Than You Might Expect

The Edge 1060 features a built-in microphone and voice control system that can be activated by saying “OK Garmin”or holding a button.

And it’s not just about switching between data screens. The cycling computer recognizes a surprisingly wide range of commands.

During a workout, you can:

Ask for your current heart rate, power, cadence, or speed.
Skip to the next or previous workout interval.
Pause a workout or repeat the current interval.
Switch data screens, open ClimbPro, or display the map.
Start power meter calibration.

Navigation commands are even more interesting:

Find a coffee shop on my route
Find a coffee shop along your current route.
Take me to the start
Navigate back to your starting point.
How far is the next course point?
Check the distance to the next course point.
Are there hazards on the road?
Check for upcoming road hazards.
Zoom in
Zoom in on the map.

You can even control a smart trainer. Voice commands allow you to adjust target power, resistance, or simulated gradient on a compatible trainer.

Another feature lets you control Garmin Varia cameras. For example, you can take a photo or save a video clip using your voice.

Garmin says the system understands natural language variations, so you don’t necessarily have to memorize exact phrases. However, this is not a general-purpose AI assistant. It recognizes commands within a supported set of functions.

The biggest question is how well voice recognition works while cycling. At 30-35 km/h, especially into a headwind, microphone performance could be less reliable. Voice commands are also not available in every language.

How Does This Compare to the Edge 1050?

The Edge 1050 already introduced a built-in speaker for audible navigation instructions, alerts, and the virtual bike bell.

However, it doesn’t have a microphone or voice control.

This is one of the most significant differences between the Edge 1060 and its predecessor.

2. Seven Physical Buttons Instead of Three. But Are They Programmable?

The Edge 1040 and 1050 had three physical buttons. The Edge 1060 has seven.

You now get dedicated hardware controls for:

Moving up and down through menus and data screens.
Selecting menu items.
Going back to the previous screen.
Starting and stopping activity recording.
Marking laps or advancing to the next workout interval.
Powering on and locking the device.

Some buttons also perform additional actions when held down, such as opening menus, accessing widgets, or activating voice control.

This is more important than it might initially seem.

Touchscreens are convenient for maps and settings, but they’re not always ideal while riding. Rain, wet gloves, rough roads, and high speeds make physical buttons much more practical.

On the Edge 1060, you can perform many common actions without touching the display.

Can you remap the buttons?

At launch, Garmin does not advertise arbitrary customization of the Edge 1060’s physical buttons. Each button has a predefined function and, in some cases, a secondary long-press action.

For example, there’s no documented built-in option to assign a physical button to open the map, activate the virtual bell, or launch a particular app.

However, the Edge does support programmable buttons on compatible electronic shifting systems. You can assign actions to those buttons, including activating the OK Garmin voice command feature.

You can also customize certain on-screen quick-action buttons, such as those used for controlling Varia cameras. That’s different from remapping the physical buttons on the Edge itself.

In other words, the main advantage of having seven buttons is more convenient operation without relying on the touchscreen, rather than extensive customization.

3. Navigation Now Offers Alternative Routes

One of the most useful improvements involves calculating routes directly on the device.

When selecting a destination, the Edge 1060 can calculate multiple route options and display them in different colors on the map. You can choose your preferred route before starting navigation.

The alternatives can be evaluated based on estimated travel time, elevation gain, and cycling activity type.

Garmin has also introduced Route Previews, allowing riders to review distance, estimated travel time, traffic conditions, and known hazards before setting off.

Even more interesting is Free Flow Routing.

Rather than optimizing routes solely based on distance and road type, the new routing approach also considers potential interruptions. Garmin aims to favor roads with fewer intersections, stops, and sections where cyclists are forced to slow down repeatedly.

For road cycling workouts, this could be much more useful than simply finding the shortest route.

Garmin has also improved Up Ahead. You can select categories of points of interest, such as cafes, restrooms, or gas stations, and see relevant locations along your route.

What’s Different from the Edge 1050?

The Edge 1050 already supported route calculation, off-course recalculation, and popularity-based cycling routes.

The main improvements in the Edge 1060 are alternative route selection with additional criteria, route previews, and the new Free Flow Routing algorithm.

How effectively these features work on real roads, especially in cities with numerous traffic lights, remains to be seen.

4. More Detailed Road Hazard Warnings

Garmin continues to expand its community-based road hazard reporting system.

Cyclists can report potholes, fallen trees, animals on the road, and road closures. Other Garmin users can receive warnings about these hazards.

An interesting detail is that the Edge 1060 allows you to indicate the direction of a road closure directly on the map.

Hazard reports can be confirmed or marked as no longer relevant. Reports also expire over time.

There are separate warning settings for railroad crossings, sharp bends, high-traffic roads, and unpaved sections.

You can also report hazards using voice commands, such as Report a pothole.

It’s worth noting that the basic road hazard reporting system was introduced with the Edge 1050 and subsequently became available on the 1040 through software updates.

The Edge 1060 improves the experience with additional warnings and the ability to submit reports without taking your hands off the handlebars.

5. GroupRide Can Automatically Discover Nearby Rides

Garmin’s GroupRide features already let cyclists share courses, track other participants, and exchange messages.

The Edge 1060 introduces a more convenient way to discover nearby group rides.

With Discover Nearby Rides, the device can notify you about active GroupRide sessions nearby and offer to join them.

It also supports automatically sharing GroupRide codes between compatible Garmin devices at close range.

This eliminates the need to manually exchange six-digit codes.

During a ride, the Edge displays other cyclists’ locations, directions of travel, and connection status.

The nearby rider list refreshes every 15 seconds. By default, it displays the 25 closest riders within a 40 km radius, although more distant participants can also be displayed.

What Was Available Before?

GroupRide already works on the Edge 1040 and 1050. Riders can share routes, messages, and locations, as well as participate in group competitions.

The main improvements in the Edge 1060 are discovering active nearby rides and simplifying the process of joining them.

Online GroupRide features require a paired smartphone running Garmin Connect.

6. A Better Interface for Structured Workouts

Garmin has redesigned the structured workout screen.

You can now see a graph of target and actual power, the current interval, and upcoming workout steps on a single screen. The graph can be zoomed in for a more detailed view.

This is particularly useful for complex workouts involving multiple interval blocks at different intensities.

The Edge also supports secondary workout targets. For example, you can maintain a specified power output while simultaneously targeting a particular cadence.

After completing a workout, the device calculates a Workout Execution Score, evaluating how closely you followed the prescribed intervals.

The score itself, along with secondary workout targets, was already available on previous Edge devices. The improvement here is primarily in the user interface.

Another interesting feature is the ability to customize Daily Suggested Workouts by specifying preferred training days and long-ride days. This allows Garmin to better account for your weekly schedule when generating recommendations.

The Edge 1050 already supports structured workouts, Garmin Coach, Power Guide, and Workout Execution Score. Therefore, 1050 owners shouldn’t expect fundamentally new training metrics from the 1060.

7. A Pre-Ride Checklist

A small but practical improvement: the Edge 1060 can display a pre-ride checklist before starting an activity.

It lets you check connected sensors, review equipment status, and calibrate your power meter.

This helps avoid the familiar situation where you discover 20 minutes into a ride that your power meter never connected or wasn’t calibrated.

The checklist is available directly before starting activity recording.

This is more of a usability improvement than a compelling reason to replace an existing cycling computer.

8. Advanced Garmin Varia Radar Features

The Edge 1060 supports a dedicated data screen for compatible Garmin Varia RearVue radars.

It displays approaching vehicles, their relative positions, and their estimated threat levels.

Depending on the radar’s capabilities, the system can consider vehicle size, closing speed, and other factors. Alerts are differentiated by threat level.

You can also add up to five customizable data fields to the radar screen, such as speed, power, or heart rate.

One important detail: many advanced radar features are already available on the Edge 1040 with current software and on the Edge 1050.

This is an advantage of Garmin’s broader ecosystem, not an exclusive Edge 1060 feature.

9. Timing Gates and 5 Hz GPS Recording

The Edge 1060 includes several interesting features for more specialized training scenarios.

Timing Gates

You can create a series of virtual timing gates and ride through them on repeated laps.

The Edge automatically records split times and compares them with your fastest previous run. Each series supports up to ten additional timing gates.

This can be useful for repeated efforts on a short course, technical training sections, or comparing multiple attempts.

5 Hz GPS Recording

Normal GPS recording typically captures one position per second.

The Edge 1060 supports recording GPS positions five times per second, providing more detailed trajectory data.

However, there’s an important limitation: this mode is intended for descents in Enduro MTB and Downhill MTB activity profiles.

The higher recording frequency helps analyze cornering lines and technical downhill sections more accurately.

For regular road cycling or gravel riding, it offers little practical benefit.

Both Timing Gates and 5 Hz GPS recording were already available on the Edge 1050, so neither is exclusive to the 1060.

10. Charging: Could the Edge 1060 Actually Be More Convenient?

This is an important question for long-distance cyclists, particularly given the reduced battery life compared to the Edge 1040.

The Edge 1060 supports external power while riding, including through compatible Garmin external power accessories.

However, there’s an interesting design change that could make charging from a regular power bank more convenient, depending on future mounting solutions.

Charging the Edge 1050 Wasn’t Convenient Either

On the Edge 1050, the USB-C charging port is located on the bottom edge of the device.

That sounds like a reasonable location, but in practice, it’s not particularly convenient when the computer is installed on an out-front mount.

The USB-C connector points toward the handlebars, leaving very little clearance. Depending on the mount, a straight connector can run directly into the handlebar, making it difficult or impossible to connect a cable while the device is mounted.

So it’s not as if the Edge 1050 offered a particularly good solution for charging from a regular power bank during a ride.

The Edge 1060 Could Actually Improve This

On the Edge 1060, Garmin has moved the USB-C port to the rear of the device, close to the mounting interface.

At first glance, this might seem like an even worse location.

But there’s an interesting possibility.

The new port position could allow third-party manufacturers to develop mounts that provide access to USB-C from underneath, with the cable connector fitting between the mounting arms.

Instead of having a USB-C connector protruding toward the handlebars, a purpose-designed mount could provide clearance for the connector to enter the port from below.

This could result in a much cleaner charging setup for long-distance riding.

Of course, this is currently a possibility rather than a confirmed accessory solution. We’ll need to see what mount manufacturers actually produce and whether the available space is sufficient.

Still, I wouldn’t automatically consider the new USB-C location a disadvantage. It might actually be an improvement over the Edge 1050, provided suitable mounts become available.

What About Garmin Power Mount?

The Edge 1060 retains electrical contacts on the back for compatible external power accessories.

This provides an alternative way to supply power during long rides without connecting a USB-C cable directly to the device.

Similar external power solutions were available for the Edge 1040 and 1050.

The main advantage is avoiding the clearance issues associated with standard USB-C connectors.

And Reverse Charging?

The Edge 1060 also introduces Reverse Charging.

This means the cycling computer can act as a power source for other devices. For example, you could charge a Garmin Varia light, a phone, or another compatible accessory through USB-C.

There are two limitations.

First, reverse charging can significantly reduce the Edge’s own battery life.

Second, Garmin states that reverse charging is not intended for use while riding.

This restriction applies to charging other devices from the Edge 1060, not to powering the Edge itself from an external source.

The distinction is important:

Charging the Edge 1060 from an external power source during a ride is supported through compatible external power accessories.
Charging the Edge through its USB-C port while mounted depends on physical clearance and the mounting solution.
Charging other devices from the Edge 1060 is primarily intended for use while stopped.

For endurance cyclists, the new USB-C placement could turn out to be a positive change, but that will depend on how accessory manufacturers respond.

11. A Few More Useful Features

Virtual Bike Bell. Double-tapping a data screen produces an audible bell sound to alert pedestrians or other cyclists. This feature first appeared on the Edge 1050.

Garmin Pay. The cycling computer supports contactless payments. Payment cards can be configured through Garmin Connect. This was already available on the 1050 but not the 1040.

Garmin Messenger. You can send and listen to voice messages and reply to text messages through a paired smartphone. The Edge 1060’s built-in microphone makes voice messaging and hands-free commands more practical.

Music Controls. The Edge can control music playback on a connected smartphone. The 1060 adds voice commands for these actions.

Customizable Home Screen. Garmin has expanded how apps and widgets can be organized, making frequently used features easier to access.

Garmin Edge 1040 vs. 1050 vs. 1060: Full Comparison

Feature	Edge 1040	Edge 1050	Edge 1060
Release year	2022	2024	2026
Display	3.5″ TFT	3.5″ LCD	3.5″ LCD
Resolution	282 × 470	480 × 800	480 × 800
Dimensions	117.6 × 59.3 × 20 mm	118.5 × 60.2 × 16.3 mm	107 × 58.5 × 16.3 mm
Weight	126 g	161 g	142 g
Physical buttons	3	3	7
Customizable device buttons	No	No	Not advertised
Battery life	Up to 35 hours	Up to 20 hours	Up to 20 hours
Battery saver mode	Up to 70 hours	Up to 60 hours	Up to 60 hours
Storage	32 GB	64 GB	64 GB
Multi-band GNSS	Yes	Yes	Yes
Built-in speaker	No	Yes	Yes
Microphone	No	No	Yes
Voice commands	No	No	Yes
Virtual bike bell	No	Yes	Yes
Garmin Pay	No	Yes	Yes
GroupRide	Yes	Yes	Yes, with nearby discovery
Free Flow Routing	No	No	Yes
USB-C reverse charging	No	No	Yes
External power during rides	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stamina / Power Guide / ClimbPro	Yes	Yes	Yes

Battery life figures are Garmin’s published estimates and depend on display brightness, satellite settings, connected sensors, and usage. The Edge 1040 figures refer to the standard non-Solar model.

Edge 1040 vs. Edge 1060

The upgrade from the Edge 1040 to the Edge 1060 is the most noticeable.

The main improvements are a much sharper and more contrast-rich display, a smaller enclosure, additional physical controls, a speaker, voice commands, and more advanced navigation features.

However, there’s a significant trade-off in battery life.

The Edge 1040 offers up to 35 hours compared to just 20 hours on the Edge 1060. The 1040’s transflective display also works particularly well in bright sunlight without requiring high backlight brightness.

For cyclists who primarily use their computers to monitor power, heart rate, and distance, the Edge 1040 remains perfectly capable.

But for riders who frequently interact with maps, search for destinations, and navigate complex routes, the Edge 1060 could provide a substantially better experience.

Edge 1050 vs. Edge 1060

This comparison is much less straightforward.

The Edge 1050 already has a high-resolution LCD display, built-in speaker, Garmin Pay, virtual bike bell, and almost the entire Garmin training analytics suite.

The Edge 1060 retains the same display size, resolution, and advertised battery life.

Its main advantages are:

A body that’s 11.5 mm shorter and 19 g lighter.
Seven physical buttons instead of three.
A microphone and voice control.
Improved navigation and routing.
Updated workout and GroupRide interfaces.
USB-C reverse charging.
A redesigned USB-C port location that could enable better charging solutions with compatible mounts.

For existing Edge 1050 owners, these improvements may not justify replacing a perfectly functional device.

That’s particularly true if voice control isn’t something they expect to use regularly.

Is the Garmin Edge 1060 Worth Buying?

The Edge 1060 is an interesting update, although not a revolutionary one.

If we look strictly at training capabilities, the differences from previous generations are relatively minor.

Stamina, FTP, Training Status, Power Guide, ClimbPro, Cycling Ability, and the other major performance metrics already exist on the Edge 1040 and 1050.

What Garmin has really improved is the user experience.

The smaller body, seven physical buttons, voice commands, and more flexible navigation address genuine usability problems.

For Edge 1040 owners, upgrading to the 1060 could make sense primarily for the display, navigation, and physical controls.

For Edge 1050 owners, the argument is much weaker. Most of the hardware capabilities and nearly all the training analytics remain unchanged.

If you’re buying a new flagship cycling computer today, the Edge 1060 is clearly the more attractive option. But replacing an existing 1050 is harder to justify unless the new features are particularly valuable to you.

We still need independent testing of interface performance, voice recognition in windy conditions, and real-world battery life.

It will also be interesting to see whether accessory manufacturers take advantage of the relocated USB-C port to develop better charging-compatible mounts.

These practical details will ultimately determine how successful the Edge 1060 really is.

My Take: Garmin Should Have Called It the Edge 1050+

In my opinion, the Garmin Edge 1060 is exactly the kind of product that should have been released as an Edge 1050+, not as a completely new generation.

I actually like several of the changes. The smaller body is welcome, the additional physical buttons address a real usability issue, and voice control could become genuinely useful if it works reliably on the road.

But let’s look at the bigger picture.

The Edge 1060 has the same display size and resolution as the 1050. Battery life hasn’t improved. The core training metrics are essentially unchanged.

There is no major new performance metric, no dramatic improvement in endurance, and no fundamental change in what the computer can do for your training.

What we get instead is a collection of sensible refinements: better ergonomics, more physical controls, voice commands, and improvements to existing navigation and training features.

To me, that’s the definition of a “Plus” refresh.

The Edge 1040 to 1050 transition brought a fundamentally different display experience. The 1050 to 1060 transition is much more incremental.

And there’s nothing wrong with incremental improvements. Not every product needs to reinvent its category every two years.

But calling this the Edge 1060 creates an expectation of a more substantial generational leap than Garmin has actually delivered.

Edge 1050+ would have been a much more accurate name.

Of course, the name itself doesn’t determine whether the product is worth buying.

If you’re upgrading from an Edge 1040, the 1060 could still be an excellent choice. You’re getting several generations of improvements in one upgrade.

If you already own an Edge 1050, though, there is very little here that would make me rush to replace it.

Ultimately, I see the Edge 1060 as a better, more refined Edge 1050 rather than a genuinely new generation.

And after two years, I expected a bit more from Garmin.

Garmin fenix 9 or fenix 8 Pro 2? What Exactly Are You Paying $1,000 For?

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:38:25 GMT

Garmin has introduced the fenix 9, and my first reaction after going through the specs was pretty simple:

Is that it?

The base fenix 9 starts at $999, while the Pro starts at $1,099. At that price, you would expect at least one change that would make a fenix 8 or fenix 8 Pro owner start looking for their credit card.

So far, I don’t see one.

Where is the new hardware?

Garmin hasn’t announced a new optical heart rate sensor or any fundamentally new health sensors. So if you were waiting for a new generation of heart rate, temperature, sleep, or recovery tracking, you’ll have to keep waiting.

The GPS situation is less clear. The watch still supports multi-band GNSS, but Garmin isn’t claiming any revolutionary new GPS hardware. On launch day, there are still almost no independent comparative tests of the fenix 9.

And that is especially interesting now that competitors like Google are seriously improving GPS accuracy. This year, Google made major improvements to dual-band GPS in the Pixel Watch 5, and early independent tests are showing very strong accuracy even in dense urban environments.

Garmin may still turn out to be better. But right now, there is no reason to consider GPS one of the reasons to buy the fenix 9.

So what actually changed?

The display is brighter. The Pro AMOLED now reaches up to 3,000 nits, and the 51 mm model finally gets a 1.5-inch display, 15% larger than the one in the fenix 8.

There is now 64 GB of storage. RAM has increased by 50%, and the new map engine promises scrolling that is up to 30% faster. The Pro gets a full titanium case. There are new Solar variants, and battery life has improved somewhat.

All of these are good improvements.

But this sounds more like the feature list for a fenix 8 Pro 2 than a new generation.

On the software side, Garmin added Garmin Epic for combining multiple activities into a single story, new Stamina Zones and Stamina Curve features, rowing VO2 Max, and expanded rucking support.

Useful to someone? Of course.

A reason to replace an expensive watch from the previous generation? Probably not.

What about inReach?

This is probably the most unusual part of the Pro lineup.

The fenix 9 Pro can send messages, trigger SOS, and use LTE without a phone. In some scenarios, that is genuinely useful: you can go for a run or a workout without your phone and still remain connected.

But for serious outdoor use, another question comes up:

If I genuinely need satellite communication, why wouldn’t I just buy a separate inReach?

Garmin itself warns that satellite and SOS functionality on the watch has limitations compared with other inReach devices.

A dedicated communicator also gives you an independent battery and a specialized device that can sit in your backpack and be used specifically when everything else has already gone wrong.

And if you already carry a modern iPhone, part of the emergency satellite use case is already covered by Apple’s satellite features. Availability is still geographically limited, so it is not a complete replacement for Garmin, but it makes the niche for built-in inReach on a watch even narrower.

The main question is no longer about hardware

What worries me more is something else.

If the fenix 8 and fenix 9 are this similar in hardware, Garmin has a very strong incentive to differentiate the generations through software.

And then the question isn’t whether the fenix 9 launches with a few exclusive features. That’s normal.

The question is whether Garmin will gradually start keeping more and more new functionality exclusive to newer models while slowing down meaningful feature updates for older watches, even when there is no technical reason they couldn’t support them.

There is no evidence yet that Garmin will do exactly that with the fenix 9.

But after an update this small, software support becomes one of the main things I would be watching.

So who actually needs the fenix 9?

If you’re buying your first Garmin, or upgrading from a fenix 6, an older fenix 7, or an Epix, the fenix 9 looks like an excellent watch.

If you specifically want MIP Solar in a modern Garmin flagship, the new lineup is also interesting.

If phone-free connectivity is important to you, the Pro has an additional reason to exist.

But for someone who already owns a fenix 8, and especially a fenix 8 Pro?

I currently see almost no rational reason to upgrade.

The fenix 9 doesn’t look like a bad product. It looks like a boring product.

Maybe this simply means Garmin’s sports watches have reached the stage where a new sensor, more accurate GPS, or a fundamentally new sports feature can no longer appear in every generation.

But if that’s the case, perhaps it would have been more honest to write this on the box:

fenix 8 Pro 2.

Coospo HW9 vs Polar Verity Sense: Do You Really Need to Pay More?

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 14:58:56 GMT

I started looking for an upper-arm heart rate sensor for a pretty simple reason: I like the accuracy of the Polar H10, but I don’t want to wear a tight chest strap for every single bike ride.

There is another reason too, based on years of using chest straps. With my Garmin sensors, the strap itself seems to die every couple of years. A replacement strap is cheap, but that isn’t really what annoys me. The problem is that the device doesn’t tell you, “Hey, your strap is dying.” Instead, at some random point you finish a workout and discover that parts of the HR recording are complete nonsense. Only then do you start troubleshooting and eventually figure out that the strap is done.

So I started looking seriously at optical sensors that I could wear on my bicep. As usual, I went through Reddit, read user experiences, and looked at which devices had actually built a good reputation over years of use.

The obvious established choice was the Polar Verity Sense. It has been around for years, comes from a well-known European sports-tech company, and costs roughly $100.

Then there was the considerably less famous Coospo HW9, made by a Chinese brand and selling for around $50.

That made the comparison much more interesting to me than simply picking the safe option. How close has the cheaper Chinese sensor actually gotten to the established Polar? And is there still a good reason to pay twice as much?

So I bought both.

For this Coospo HW9 vs Polar Verity Sense comparison, I wore both sensors alongside a Polar H10 on the chest, use the H10 as my reference, and see what actually happens on the bike.

After the first comparison, I ended up doing three more tests because the result looked almost too good.

TLDR: If you just want the short version: for cycling, I would pick the HW9. Pretty easily👌

What I actually wanted to test

I wasn’t particularly interested in whether both sensors could show 145 bpm during an hour of steady riding.

If heart rate barely changes, almost any decent modern sensor can produce a nice-looking graph.

What interested me was something else: what happens when heart rate rises and falls quickly?

For all of the tests I used three sensors:

Polar H10 on the chest as my reference
Coospo HW9 on the bicep
Polar Verity Sense on the bicep

During the workouts I deliberately included plenty of sections where HR moved up and down, so I could see not only how close the values were, but also how quickly each optical sensor reacted to changes.

The difference was already pretty obvious in the first test.

The first test surprised me

These were the results from the first comparison:

Metric	Coospo HW9	Polar Verity Sense
Similarity	99.6%	99.4%
Correlation vs H10	0.999	0.992
Mean absolute error, MAE	1.2 bpm	1.8 bpm
RMSE	1.4 bpm	2.5 bpm
Bias	-1.2 bpm	-0.1 bpm
Maximum difference	4 bpm	10 bpm

If you don’t care about MAE and RMSE, the important part for me was simple: the HW9 on my bicep stayed extremely close to the Polar H10 on my chest.

And when I say I was basically giving up nothing in HR accuracy with the HW9, I mean compared with the chest-mounted H10, not compared with the Verity Sense.

The HW9 did have a small systematic offset. It tended to read about one beat per minute low.

For my use, I don’t care.

What I cared about much more was something I noticed with the Verity.

The Verity Sense was lagging

This wasn’t something I only noticed later while staring at graphs. I could see the Verity lag in real time during every test when I looked at the screens while changing the effort.

When HR started climbing, the H10 reacted first, the HW9 followed closely, and the Verity kept showing the older value for a while.

The same thing happened when HR started dropping.

For me, this matters much more than the difference between, say, 169 and 170 bpm.

If my heart rate is already rising quickly, I want the sensor to show me that it is rising now. I don’t need a very accurate answer to the question of what my heart rate was several seconds ago.

That was the part of the Verity performance I didn’t like.

Of course, after one test there was still a very reasonable question: maybe the problem wasn’t the Verity at all.

So I started eliminating other possibilities.

Maybe it was just the different arms?

In the first test, the HW9 was on my left arm and the Verity Sense was on my right.

I even wondered whether the right arm being slightly farther from the heart could somehow contribute to the delay 🤔. There were also more obvious possibilities: slightly different strap pressure, blood flow, arm movement, or sensor position.

So for the second test, I simply swapped the sensors between arms.

The Verity was now where the HW9 had been.

The result stayed the same.

The Verity was still the one lagging.

That made things more interesting.

So I put both sensors on the same bicep 💪

For the third test, I wanted to remove the left-arm versus right-arm question entirely.

I put both optical sensors next to each other on my left bicep.

Now their conditions were about as similar as I could make them.

And again I saw the same pattern: the HW9 followed changes from the H10 much more closely, while the Verity lagged behind.

After three tests, explaining the difference purely by sensor placement was getting difficult.

But there was still one possible flaw in my setup.

Maybe the recording devices were causing it?

I was recording the HW9 and Verity with different devices (Garmin EDGE 1040 and Garmin Venu 4).

That means there was still a theoretical possibility that one recorder had a slightly different clock or handled incoming data differently, and I was mistaking that for sensor latency.

So I did a fourth test specifically to check this.

This time I swapped the recording devices used for the HW9 and the Verity. I kept the H10 on the same recorder as before.

And once again I got the same overall result.

By this point I didn’t even need to wait for the FIT files to confirm it. I was deliberately watching the displays during rising and falling HR, and I could again see that the Verity reacted later.

So across the tests I tried all of the obvious permutations:

sensors on different arms
sensors swapped between arms
both sensors next to each other on the same bicep
recording devices swapped between the HW9 and Verity

The result stayed consistent:

The Coospo HW9 followed changes from the Polar H10 faster. The Polar Verity Sense noticeably lagged behind.

I’m not trying to turn this into a lab specification for every Verity Sense ever made. These are my sensors, my workouts, and my arm.

But after reproducing the same behavior four times, I’m perfectly comfortable using it to decide which sensor I prefer.

What that means on the bike

During steady riding, the difference may not matter at all.

If I’ve been sitting at around 150 bpm for several minutes, all three devices will show something around 150. In that situation, I barely care which one is on my arm.

But as soon as the workload changes, things become different.

I push harder and HR starts going up. Or I finish an interval and start recovering.

At that point I want my current heart rate.

That is why the HW9 reading about one beat low on average bothers me far less than the clearly visible delay from the Verity.

For cycling, I would take the first trade-off without hesitation.

And the HW9 costs about half as much

This is probably the funniest part of the whole comparison.

If the HW9 and Verity Sense cost the same, I would still choose the HW9 for cycling after these tests.

But the Coospo costs roughly half the price.

Before testing it, I expected the lower price to show up exactly where it matters most.

Maybe I’d see weird spikes.

Maybe it would lag badly.

Maybe the optical sensor would fall apart during intervals.

Instead, I got almost the opposite.

The cheaper sensor is the one I actually prefer using.

Charging the HW9 is better too

This part has nothing to do with HR accuracy. It is just everyday usability.

The HW9 is a single integrated unit. There is no separate sensor puck and holder. Magnetic contacts sit on the back, so you just attach the charging cable directly to the sensor.

With the Verity Sense, you have to remove the sensor from the strap and insert it into a separate USB charging cradle.

And the Polar solution has another little annoyance: the cradle uses old-school USB Type-A, and the cradle itself is fairly wide. On a compact multi-port charger, it can block the neighboring port, so you may need to find it a USB socket with some empty space around it.

The HW9 cable also annoyingly uses old USB on the charger end, and I would much rather have USB-C there.

But the actual charging setup is still much cleaner: small magnetic connector to the sensor, no separate cradle.

And COOSPO, come on. It is 2026. I understand you may already have a warehouse full of these charging cables, but if you want to compete with more serious players in the wearable market, attention to small details matters. You do not even need to replace the bundled cable immediately. At least sell a USB-C version as an optional accessory. I would buy one.

The vibration turned out to be more useful than I expected

The HW9 lets you configure heart rate zones and can vibrate when you move between them.

I don’t need that feature. On the bike I already have a Garmin in front of me, so another vibration on my arm every time I cross a zone is more distracting than useful. I disabled it in the app.

But the vibration motor does something else that I genuinely like.

The HW9 vibrates when you turn it on and off.

That sounds trivial, but it is genuinely useful. Press the button and you immediately get tactile confirmation that the sensor powered on. Finish the workout, turn it off, and you get another confirmation.

No need to stare at a tiny LED and wonder whether the button press actually registered.

That is the kind of vibration I actually want.

The Coospo app is completely fine

At first the Coospo app seemed very basic.

After playing with it a bit more, I realized that for this kind of device, that’s mostly a compliment.

I paired the HW9, checked the settings, configured the zones, and disabled the zone-change vibration.

Done.

I don’t want to open the heart rate sensor manufacturer’s app after every workout. I want to configure the sensor once and then have it work with the devices and apps I actually use.

That is exactly how the HW9 behaved.

Surprisingly, I had more trouble with Polar during the initial pairing process.

Polar Flow could see the Verity Sense, but several pairing attempts failed. I removed the sensor from the phone’s Bluetooth settings and tried again.

Still no luck.

Eventually it paired correctly only when I started the pairing process from the workout start screen in Polar Flow 🤦.

I still don’t know why it worked there but not from the main part of the app, even though Flow could see the sensor the whole time.

Maybe it was just a one-off software bug. But my actual experience was that the cheaper HW9 connected and configured without drama, while the Polar made me troubleshoot.

And the HW9 unexpectedly worked with Wellhero

One other thing pleasantly surprised me: the HW9 immediately showed up as a supported device in Wellhero 💙.

I use external HR sensors for more than cycling. In Wellhero I do short RR-interval measurements to get, among other things, a stress estimate based on the Baevsky Stress Index.

The HW9 worked perfectly fine as a source for those measurements.

For me, that’s a nice bonus. I bought it primarily as an alternative to a chest strap for cycling, but I can also use the same little sensor for these measurements.

Where I would still choose the Verity Sense

There is one use case where this comparison becomes much less relevant: swimming.

The Verity Sense is actually designed to be used in the pool. You can set the pool length in Polar Flow and use it specifically for swim training.

The HW9 has an IP67 rating, but Coospo explicitly states: Not suitable for swimming

So if I wanted one optical sensor for cycling, running, and pool swimming, the Verity has a very clear advantage.

But I tested these primarily as upper-arm heart rate sensors for cycling.

And for that, my choice is very different.

What I would buy

If you skipped straight to the bottom, the answer is simple:

For cycling, I would buy the Coospo HW9.

It is cheaper, easier to charge, easy enough to configure, gives useful tactile confirmation when powering on and off, and in my repeated tests it followed actual HR changes better.

I would consider the Verity Sense mainly if I needed a sensor for swimming.

My Polar H10 isn’t going anywhere either. For really hard indoor interval sessions, I will still wear the H10 because I want TrainerRoad to get the cleanest possible picture of what is happening during those efforts.

But for an easy ride, an endurance session, or a long day outside, I definitely don’t want to tighten a chest strap around myself if I don’t have to.

For that, I now have the HW9 on my bicep.

And after four comparison tests, that’s the one I would buy again.

Apple Watch vs Fitbit Air vs Garmin CIRQA vs Venu 4: Surprising Differences After 7 Nights of Sleep Tracking

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 16:33:44 GMT

Sleep tracking on modern wearables looks impressively precise.

A watch can tell you that you slept for 6 hours and 41 minutes, including 1 hour and 28 minutes of Deep sleep, 1 hour and 29 minutes of REM, plus a few minutes awake. Once you have enough numbers displayed down to the exact minute, it becomes very easy to treat them as exact measurements.

But what happens if you wear four modern sleep trackers at the same time?

For seven nights, I slept with an Apple Watch and Fitbit Air on my left wrist, plus a Garmin Venu 4 and Garmin CIRQA on my right.

The goal wasn’t to determine which device measures sleep “correctly.” Without polysomnography, or at least EEG, I don’t have ground-truth data against which I can validate sleep stages.

Instead, I was interested in a simpler and more practical question:

If four modern wearables observe exactly the same nights, how similar will their results actually be?

The answer depends heavily on the metric.

All four devices reported almost identical overnight heart rates. The two Garmin devices produced nearly identical HRV values. Total sleep duration was generally in the same ballpark as well.

But once we get to Deep and REM sleep, the four devices start telling noticeably different stories.

How I Tested Them

I wore all four devices simultaneously.

On my left wrist:

Apple Watch, closer to the hand
Fitbit Air, positioned above it

On my right wrist:

Garmin Venu 4, closer to the hand
Garmin CIRQA, positioned above it

Obviously, this isn’t a laboratory setup. If you wear four devices at once, two of them inevitably have to sit slightly higher on the arm. But their positions remained consistent from night to night, and all four were observing the same sleep.

I also made sure the two Garmin devices couldn’t mix data through the same ecosystem.

CIRQA and Venu 4 were connected to separate Garmin Connect accounts running on two physically separate phones. Each device recorded and processed its nights independently.

Apple Watch sleep data and overnight HRV came through Wellhero.

There is one limitation with Fitbit Air. Google Health doesn’t expose HRV specifically for the sleep period, so the Fitbit HRV value available to me covers the entire day. For that reason, Fitbit Air isn’t included in the direct HRV comparison with Apple Watch and Garmin.

The experiment actually ran for more than seven nights, but I excluded two of them.

On one night, I simply forgot to wear the Venu 4. On another, CIRQA lost the entire night’s data after charging, which I’ll get back to later.

That left seven nights with a complete dataset from all four devices.

Sleep Duration: Surprisingly Close, But Not Always

Average sleep duration across the seven nights was:

Device	Average Sleep Duration
Garmin Venu 4	5h 54m
Garmin CIRQA	5h 56m
Apple Watch	6h 11m
Fitbit Air	6h 20m

At the weekly-average level, the two Garmin devices were almost identical.

Apple Watch recorded slightly more sleep, with Fitbit recording a bit more again.

But those averages hide an important detail.

The closest pair on individual nights was actually Apple Watch and Fitbit Air. Their mean absolute difference was only about 9 minutes per night, with a median difference of around 8 minutes. The largest difference across the seven nights was 30 minutes.

The two Garmin devices ended the week with almost identical averages, but individual nights matched less closely.

The mean absolute difference between CIRQA and Venu 4 was roughly 25 minutes, with a maximum difference of 83 minutes.

So two devices can finish a week with nearly identical average sleep duration while disagreeing by more than an hour on a particular night.

It’s a good example of why a weekly average can make agreement look better than the underlying nightly data really is.

Sleep Stages: This Is Where Things Get Messy

Average nightly sleep stages looked like this:

Device	Deep	REM	Light/Core
Garmin CIRQA	1h 30m	41m	3h 45m
Garmin Venu 4	1h 36m	38m	3h 40m
Apple Watch	51m	1h 28m	3h 51m
Fitbit Air	1h 02m	1h 10m	4h 07m

And now we’re dealing with differences on a completely different scale.

Both Garmin devices consistently classified much more of my sleep as Deep and considerably less as REM.

Apple Watch sat almost at the opposite end of the range.

Venu 4 reported roughly 45 minutes more Deep sleep per night than Apple Watch, while reporting around 50 minutes less REM.

CIRQA showed a very similar pattern.

Fitbit Air usually landed somewhere between Garmin and Apple.

Can I look at this table and say Apple is right and Garmin is wrong? No.

Can I say the opposite? Also no.

None of these four devices is a ground-truth reference.

But the disagreement itself is already useful:

The devices can agree reasonably well on how long you slept while completely disagreeing on what that sleep consisted of.

CIRQA and Venu 4 Are Surprisingly Similar

The comparison between the two Garmin devices is particularly interesting.

Remember that they were operating independently, on separate Garmin Connect accounts and separate phones.

Their mean absolute difference was:

12 minutes for Deep sleep
11 minutes for REM

That’s considerably smaller than the difference between either Garmin and Apple Watch.

CIRQA and Apple Watch differed by an average of roughly:

39 minutes for Deep
47 minutes for REM

Venu 4 and Apple Watch differed by:

45 minutes for Deep
50 minutes for REM

Yet the two Garmin devices weren’t nearly as close when estimating total sleep duration.

So there is an interesting pattern here: they don’t always agree on exactly where sleep starts and ends, but once they have identified sleep, they classify it into stages in remarkably similar ways.

To me, that looks much more like a Garmin-specific sleep-staging pattern than random error from one optical sensor.

So What Did Researchers Find in the Lab?

My test doesn’t include EEG, but there are studies where consumer wearables have been compared directly against PSG.

One such study tested Apple Watch Series 8, Fitbit Sense, Fitbit Charge 5 and Garmin Vivosmart 4.

Agreement with PSG for four-stage sleep classification differed considerably between platforms. Apple Watch produced the strongest agreement within this group, Fitbit was lower, and Garmin Vivosmart 4 was notably lower than both.

More interestingly for this particular experiment, Garmin Vivosmart 4 substantially overestimated Deep sleep on average compared with PSG, while Apple Watch underestimated it.

That sounds rather familiar.

In my data, both modern Garmin devices also report considerably more Deep sleep and less REM than Apple Watch.

Of course, Vivosmart 4 isn’t CIRQA or Venu 4. It’s a different generation of hardware and potentially a different algorithm.

So that study doesn’t prove that my Garmin devices are wrong by any specific number of minutes.

But it does reinforce the broader point: sleep staging on consumer wearables depends heavily on the algorithm and can differ substantially between ecosystems.

In this case, my small seven-night experiment and controlled laboratory research point in a fairly similar direction.

Overnight Heart Rate Is Much More Boring

And that’s a good thing.

Average overnight heart rate was:

Device	Average HR
Apple Watch	51.7 bpm
Garmin Venu 4	52.1 bpm
Garmin CIRQA	52.3 bpm
Fitbit Air	52.9 bpm

The differences on the same nights are even more interesting.

Mean absolute difference:

CIRQA vs Venu 4: 0.1 bpm
CIRQA vs Apple Watch: 0.7 bpm
CIRQA vs Fitbit Air: 0.6 bpm
Apple Watch vs Fitbit Air: 1.2 bpm

Essentially, all four devices are seeing the same overnight heart rate.

Date	CIRQA	Venu	Apple Watch	Air
2026-08-03	49	49	48.4	49
2026-08-04	49	49	48.4	49
2026-08-05	50	50	50.2	51
2026-08-06	51	51	50.8	52
2026-08-08	56	56	55.9	57
2026-08-10	58	57	55.9	58
2026-08-11	53	53	52	54

Against the sleep-stage results, this is probably one of the clearest findings of the entire test.

When we’re dealing with a relatively direct physiological measurement, the devices are extremely close.

Once a classification algorithm is layered on top and has to decide whether you’re asleep and which stage you’re in, the results diverge much more dramatically.

HRV: The Two Garmins Are Nearly Identical

For HRV, I can directly compare CIRQA, Venu 4 and Apple Watch / Wellhero.

Average values were:

Device	HRV
Garmin CIRQA	42.9 ms
Garmin Venu 4	43.4 ms
Apple Watch / Wellhero	47.4 ms

CIRQA and Venu 4 differed by only about 1.1 ms on average.

That’s remarkably close.

Apple Watch / Wellhero produced somewhat different absolute values, with a mean absolute difference of roughly 10 ms compared with Garmin.

But I wouldn’t try to turn this into another contest over which platform measures HRV “correctly.”

HRV depends on the measurement window, artifact filtering, aggregation method and other implementation details.

So the useful conclusion is narrower:

Two independently operating Garmin devices produced nearly identical overnight HRV when worn at the same time.

Fitbit Air isn’t part of this comparison because Google Health provides me with HRV over a different time window.

Wake-Ups Aren’t Really Comparable

I initially collected wake-up data as well.

Then it became obvious that a meaningful comparison wasn’t really possible.

Garmin reports Restless Moments. Apple and Fitbit use different definitions for Awake periods and wake-ups.

As a result, Garmin might report 20, 30 or more than 40 restless moments during a night, while Apple reports a handful of awake periods and Fitbit sometimes reports none at all.

That doesn’t mean Garmin thinks I woke up forty times.

They’re simply different metrics.

So I didn’t use wake-up counts either to compare the devices or to decide which one was more accurate.

It’s also a useful reminder of a broader problem with cross-platform wearable comparisons: metrics with similar-looking names don’t necessarily measure the same thing.

What Happens in the Morning: Four Devices, Different Approaches

There is another part of sleep tracking that is easy to lose when comparing sensors.

In the morning, the user doesn’t open a CSV with four columns. They open an app.

And the platforms approach this quite differently.

Garmin provides a lot of individual numbers. You can inspect overnight HRV, overnight heart rate, sleep duration, sleep stages and other metrics.

Screenshot

Garmin also has HRV Status, but that is built around a 7-day average HRV compared with your personal baseline.

Screenshot

That makes sense for tracking longer-term status. But if HRV changes sharply on one particular night, that change is partly diluted by the previous six nights, so the status itself can react more slowly.

Fitbit and Wellhero put more emphasis on showing an individual night’s values relative to your own personal range. So in the morning, I don’t just see an HRV or heart-rate number. I can immediately see how far it sits from my usual values.

Wellhero also explains the sleep metrics themselves and what changes in those metrics can mean, with the basic explanations and personalized context available without a subscription.

Screenshot

Google Health takes a similar approach to personal ranges, while the paid tier adds another layer: AI is integrated directly into the app. It can use the collected health data to describe the night’s sleep as a whole, identify changes and answer questions about the user’s own data.

Screenshot

I’m not sure I need AI to tell me how I slept every morning. But from a UX perspective, it’s a much more modern approach than simply presenting another screen full of numbers.

A Week of Battery Life and a Tracker You Forget You’re Wearing

I charged Fitbit Air before starting the test, and it then lasted through all seven nights on that single charge. I didn’t do anything to extend battery life either. SpO2 remained enabled throughout.

In actual use, that mattered more than it sounds on a spec sheet. During the test, I simply stopped checking the battery.

The second observation is purely physical: Fitbit Air was the least noticeable of all four devices on my wrist.

Apple Watch and Venu 4 are full smartwatches, so comparing them with a small screenless tracker isn’t entirely fair. CIRQA is lighter than a normal watch too, but Air still disappeared on the wrist more effectively. After wearing it for a while, I would basically forget it was there.

For a sleep tracker, that’s a meaningful characteristic. If you’re supposed to wear something every night, ideally you shouldn’t have to think about it while sleeping.

CIRQA, on the Other Hand, Lost an Entire Night

During the test, CIRQA did exactly what I least want a passive sleep tracker to do.

I had it on the charger before bed. After removing it, the device still connected normally to Garmin Connect and showed around 98% battery. Everything looked fine. Except the optical sensor hadn’t switched back on. I didn’t notice and went to sleep.

The next morning, I discovered that the entire night of heart-rate and sleep data was gone. Restarting CIRQA brought the optical sensor back to life.

This is most likely a fairly ordinary early firmware bug, and I expect Garmin to fix it in an update.

But for me, the interesting part isn’t only the bug itself. It’s also Garmin’s approach to launching CIRQA.

The device was kept under near-total secrecy before release. As a result, buyers got a brand-new product before there was a meaningful body of long-term independent testing around it.

And then a production device turns up with a bug where a 24/7 tracker can silently stop performing its primary job after a completely normal charging session.

The bug will probably be fixed. But the lost night isn’t coming back. And neither can my Garmin Connect Sleep Savant badge 😅

For a device like CIRQA, this is a particularly bad class of bug. There is no screen and very little active interaction, so the user needs to be able to simply assume that the tracker is doing its job.

If I need to check before bed that the optical sensor really came back on after every charging session, the whole “wear it and forget it” concept starts to fall apart a little.

What I Actually Find Useful in Sleep Tracking

My conclusion after these seven nights is fairly simple.

I primarily pay attention to sleep duration, overnight heart rate, HRV relative to my own baseline, and temperature changes when the device supports them.

I treat Deep, REM and Light/Core more as additional context than precise measurements.

For me, the main value of sleep tracking isn’t knowing the exact number of minutes of Deep sleep. It’s having a device automatically collect a reasonably stable set of physiological data every night and making it easier to notice when something changes relative to my normal state.

Garmin CIRQA Not Tracking Sleep? Check These 6 Things

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 11:13:11 GMT

You wake up, open Garmin Connect, and… nothing.

No Sleep Score. No sleep stages. No overnight HRV. And potentially no useful Training Readiness update either.

That can happen with the Garmin CIRQA for a handful of reasons. Some are standard Garmin ecosystem quirks, such as device priority or a missed sync. But there’s also a much more interesting CIRQA-specific problem: the band can appear completely healthy in Garmin Connect while the optical heart rate sensor is, in reality, doing absolutely nothing.

I ran into exactly that.

So before factory-resetting anything or opening a support ticket, here are the six things I’d check.

1. First, Check Whether You Have Overnight Heart Rate Data

This is by far the quickest way to narrow down the problem.

Open Garmin Connect and look at your Heart Rate graph (More → Health → Heart Rate) for the previous night.

If you have continuous heart rate data but no recorded sleep, the optical sensor was probably working. In that case, start looking at device priority, synchronization, and your sleep schedule.

If you have no heart rate data either, the problem is further upstream. CIRQA either wasn’t measuring your heart rate at all, or it lost usable contact with your skin.

That distinction saves a lot of random troubleshooting.

Garmin requires heart rate data during the sleep period for normal sleep detection, so if the HR graph is completely empty, there isn’t much point starting with your Sleep Score settings.

And this is where things get interesting with CIRQA.

2. Check Whether the Optical Sensor Is Actually Running

Take the CIRQA off your wrist and look at the underside.

The optical heart rate LEDs should come on when the device is trying to measure your heart rate. You can also open Garmin Connect and see whether a current HR value appears.

There are already user reports of an early CIRQA bug where the optical sensor fails to restart after charging.

The nasty part is that the rest of the band can look perfectly normal.

CIRQA may still:

show a normal battery level;
remain connected to your phone;
sync successfully with Garmin Connect;
respond to the button;
yet record no heart rate or any of the metrics that depend on it.

That’s exactly what happened to me. Before going to bed, I took a shower and put the CIRQA on its charger while I was in there. Afterwards, I put it back on and went to sleep as usual.

The next morning Garmin Connect showed 98% battery, and the CIRQA was connected and syncing normally. But there was no sleep. Then I checked the Heart Rate graph. Nothing there either.

And when I took the CIRQA off, the optical sensor wasn’t running at all.

So in my case, the missing sleep wasn’t really a sleep-tracking problem. The CIRQA had apparently come off the charger without restarting its optical HR sensor.

What fixed it for me was:

Garmin Connect → power the CIRQA off completely → turn it back on using the physical button.

Immediately after restarting, the optical sensor came back to life. Other CIRQA users have reported similar post-charging behavior, so at this point I’d strongly recommend doing one very simple check after charging:

Make sure the band is actually measuring your heart rate before putting it back on. It takes about two seconds and could save an entire night of missing data. For now, this appears to be a user-reported firmware issue rather than an officially documented Garmin bug.

3. Make Sure CIRQA Is Your Primary Wearable

If CIRQA is your only Garmin wearable, you probably don’t need to think much about this.

But CIRQA is exactly the kind of device that people are likely to use alongside another Garmin device.

For example:

CIRQA for 24/7 tracking and sleep;
Edge for cycling;
Fenix, Forerunner, or Venu for other workouts.

If you have several devices in Garmin Connect, make sure CIRQA is configured as your Primary Wearable.

You can find it here:

Garmin Connect → More → Settings → Device Priority → Primary Wearable

If you’re sleeping with CIRQA, that’s the device Garmin should normally be treating as the primary source for your all-day wellness data.

Having another device set as Primary Wearable doesn’t guarantee that your sleep will disappear, but if you’re troubleshooting missing sleep data, this is one of the first configuration items worth eliminating.

4. Force a Manual Sync

Sometimes the sleep was recorded perfectly well on the band and Garmin Connect simply hasn’t received it yet.

On the Garmin Connect home screen, look near the CIRQA icon at the top. There’s a circular sync icon with two arrows immediately to the left of the CIRQA icon. Tap it and let the synchronization finish.

If your sleep, HRV, and heart rate data suddenly appear, congratulations: nothing particularly interesting happened. It was simply a sync problem.

But there’s one important caveat with CIRQA. A successful sync does not necessarily prove that the optical sensor was working. In my case, CIRQA was connected and syncing just fine while recording absolutely no heart rate data. So if the sync completes successfully but your overnight Heart Rate graph is empty, go back to step 2.

5. Check Your Sleep Schedule

Garmin also uses your configured sleep schedule as one of the inputs for sleep detection.

You can find it in Garmin Connect under:

More → Garmin Devices → CIRQA → User Profile → Sleep Schedule

Depending on the exact Garmin Connect version, the wording or location may vary slightly, but you’re looking for the setting containing your usual bedtime and wake-up time.

Make sure those times are at least reasonably close to your actual sleeping pattern.

This is particularly worth checking if:

you recently travelled across time zones;
your sleep schedule changed significantly;
you’ve only recently configured the CIRQA or Garmin Connect.

That said, don’t overthink this setting.

Your Garmin doesn’t simply stop tracking at the exact minute your configured Sleep Window ends. Think of the schedule as an input into the sleep-detection algorithm rather than a hard recording boundary. And again, if there’s no overnight HR data whatsoever, this probably isn’t your problem.

6. Check Fit and Heart Rate Settings

Finally, there are the boring causes. And boring causes are still causes.

If CIRQA recorded some of the night but your HR graph contains large gaps, check whether the band maintained decent contact with your skin.

Possible causes include:

a strap that’s too loose;
the sensor moving while you sleep;
sleeping on your arm and shifting the band;
tattoos directly underneath the optical sensor;
optical HR being disabled;
activity tracking being disabled;
power-saving settings interfering with sensors.

These tend to look different from the charging bug. With poor skin contact, you’ll usually see intermittent HR data or gaps. With the issue I experienced after charging, there was simply nothing. The optical sensor itself wasn’t running.

The 30-Second Troubleshooting Version

If your CIRQA didn’t record sleep last night, don’t start randomly changing settings.

Start with this:

Do you have overnight heart rate data?

If yes:

Check Primary Wearable → manually sync → check Sleep Schedule.

If no:

Check whether the optical LEDs are working → restart CIRQA if necessary → then check fit and HR settings.

And for CIRQA specifically, I’d add one more rule for now:

After charging it, verify that the optical sensor actually came back on.

Because apparently, a CIRQA can be sitting there at 98% battery, connected to Garmin Connect, happily syncing away…

…while measuring precisely nothing.

That’s not ideal behavior for a device whose main job is 24/7 sleep, HRV, recovery, and wellness tracking.

Garmin CIRQA vs Fitbit Air for Cycling: Two Road Rides Compared With Polar H10

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 12:46:39 GMT

Garmin CIRQA and Fitbit Air are not really designed as dedicated cycling heart-rate monitors. They are fitness trackers intended to collect data quietly throughout the day, track sleep and recovery, and record heart rate during everyday activities.

That distinction matters.

I did not test them during structured intervals, short sprints, or repeated threshold efforts. Instead, I completed two normal road rides at a fitness-oriented intensity and compared both devices against a Polar H10 chest strap.

TLDR: both devices are more than good enough for tracking ordinary fitness rides, but Fitbit Air was more accurate in both tests.

There are, however, a few interesting details hidden behind that conclusion.

Test setup

During both rides, I used three devices simultaneously:

Polar H10 as the reference chest strap
Garmin CIRQA, broadcasting heart rate over ANT+ to a Garmin Venu
Fitbit Air, with workout data later exported through Google Health

These are not identical data pipelines.

CIRQA calculates heart rate on the device, broadcasts the result to the Venu, and the watch saves it into a FIT file. Fitbit Air synchronizes through the Fitbit and Google ecosystem, after which the workout can be exported as a TCX file.

So this test compares the data a user can realistically obtain from each device. It does not isolate the optical sensors from the algorithms, recording devices, and possible post-processing involved.

Both tests were performed on a road bike and on paved roads. I will test both devices separately on gravel, where vibration and movement should present a much harder challenge.

The two rides were not identical

The first route included rougher pavement, along with several short climbs and descents through rolling terrain.

The second ride was conducted on substantially better asphalt and did not include the same repeated climbs and descents. It was a smoother and more consistent ride overall.

That difference is potentially important. Optical heart-rate sensors can be affected by vibration, wrist movement, device fit, changes in hand pressure, and movement between the sensor and the skin.

As a result, the stronger CIRQA performance in the second test cannot automatically be attributed only to a recording-setting change. The smoother road surface may also have contributed.

Test 1: Fitbit Air clearly ahead

The first ride was relatively steady, with heart rate spending much of the time around 130 to 145 bpm.

Fitbit Air vs Polar H10

Mean absolute error: 1.8 bpm
Correlation: 0.936
RMSE: 2.7 bpm
Bias: -0.2 bpm
Maximum difference: 12 bpm

Fitbit Air tracked the Polar H10 closely for most of the ride. There were a few small local differences, but no major spikes and almost no systematic over-reading or under-reading.

For an optical fitness tracker used during outdoor cycling, this was a very strong result.

Garmin CIRQA vs Polar H10

Mean absolute error: 3.5 bpm
Correlation: 0.706
RMSE: 6.7 bpm
Bias: +1.3 bpm
Maximum difference: 58 bpm

For most of the ride, CIRQA also followed the general heart-rate pattern reasonably well.

The larger errors came primarily from a small number of substantial artifacts.

For example:

Garmin CIRQA	Polar H10
191 bpm	approximately 140 bpm
189 bpm	approximately 131 bpm
188 bpm	approximately 131 bpm

There was also a longer episode where CIRQA gradually increased from roughly 129 bpm to 162 bpm while the Polar H10 remained close to 126 bpm.

This was not a charting artifact. I checked the source FIT file, and those values were already present in the data recorded by the Garmin Venu.

An interesting recording issue: only 27% shared coverage

In the first test, shared coverage was:

CIRQA: 27.2%
Fitbit Air: 41.7%

That does not mean CIRQA only recorded 27% of the ride.

All three files covered almost the entire comparison period. The difference came from how frequently each recording device saved heart-rate samples.

The Polar H10 recording from the Garmin Edge contained approximately one heart-rate point per second. The Venu, however, had Smart Recording enabled. This meant that the CIRQA heart-rate values were saved only every few seconds rather than continuously at one-second intervals.

Fitbit Air also produced fewer samples than the Polar recording, typically around one point every two or three seconds.

In this case, shared coverage describes sample density rather than the actual percentage of the ride during which the devices were operating.

Before the second ride, I changed the Venu from Smart Recording to Every Second.

Test 2: CIRQA gets much closer

The second ride produced a substantially better result for CIRQA.

Fitbit Air vs Polar H10

Mean absolute error: 1.3 bpm
Correlation: 0.975
RMSE: 2.4 bpm
Bias: -0.1 bpm
Maximum difference: 17 bpm

Garmin CIRQA vs Polar H10

Mean absolute error: 1.9 bpm
Correlation: 0.962
RMSE: 2.9 bpm
Bias: +0.2 bpm
Maximum difference: 27 bpm

CIRQA’s shared coverage increased to 99.5%, which is exactly what I would expect after switching the Venu to one-second recording.

More importantly, the large spikes seen during the first ride did not repeat. The CIRQA trace stayed very close to the Polar H10 throughout most of the ride.

Fitbit Air still produced the better numbers, but the difference was now fairly small. Both devices recorded a mean absolute error below 2 bpm, and both followed the reference trace closely.

Combined results

Ride	Device	MAE	Correlation	RMSE	Maximum difference
Test 1	Garmin CIRQA	3.5 bpm	0.706	6.7 bpm	58 bpm
Test 1	Fitbit Air	1.8 bpm	0.936	2.7 bpm	12 bpm
Test 2	Garmin CIRQA	1.9 bpm	0.962	2.9 bpm	27 bpm
Test 2	Fitbit Air	1.3 bpm	0.975	2.4 bpm	17 bpm

Fitbit Air performed better in both tests:

lower mean error
higher correlation
lower RMSE
smaller large deviations
virtually no consistent over-reading or under-reading

However, the gap was much smaller during the second ride.

What caused the CIRQA artifacts?

There is not enough information from two rides to identify a single cause.

Several explanations are plausible:

temporary loss of a clean optical signal
vibration from rough pavement
movement of the device against the skin
changes in hand position or pressure on the bars
a temporary algorithm failure
an error during ANT+ transmission or reception

The isolated spikes could simply be brief optical errors.

The longer false rise is more interesting. A gradual increase of roughly 30 bpm looks less like a single bad sample and more like the sensor temporarily locking onto a periodic movement pattern.

However, the second ride showed that this does not happen consistently.

Did Every Second recording improve CIRQA accuracy?

Not necessarily.

Switching the Venu from Smart Recording to Every Second clearly explains why shared coverage increased from 27.2% to 99.5%.

It does not necessarily explain why the underlying heart-rate accuracy also improved.

Smart Recording changes how often values are written into the FIT file. It should not fundamentally change how CIRQA measures heart rate or what it broadcasts over ANT+.

The second test also took place on much smoother asphalt and without the repeated short climbs and descents from the first route. That likely meant fewer vibrations, fewer changes in body position, and less movement between the tracker and the skin.

So two variables changed at once:

the recording frequency
the riding conditions

The second result may therefore reflect both denser recording and easier conditions for an optical sensor.

Does Fitbit Air have a better sensor?

That conclusion would go beyond what these tests actually show.

The CIRQA data path looks approximately like this:

Optical signal
→ CIRQA heart-rate algorithm
→ ANT+ broadcast
→ Garmin Venu
→ FIT file

The Fitbit Air path looks more like this:

Optical signal
→ Fitbit algorithms
→ synchronization
→ Google Health
→ TCX export

The CIRQA FIT file is relatively close to the real-time heart-rate stream sent to the Venu.

The Fitbit Air file was exported after synchronization through Google Health. It may have undergone additional filtering, smoothing, resampling, or artifact removal before export.

That does not mean Google Health definitely corrected the data. The available files do not reveal exactly what processing occurred. But the cleaner Fitbit Air trace does not, by itself, prove that its photodiodes or electronics are inherently superior.

The more defensible conclusion is:

Fitbit Air produced more accurate final workout data in both rides, but this test cannot separate sensor quality from algorithm quality and post-processing.

For most users, though, the final exported data is what matters.

Are they good enough for cyclists?

For normal road fitness rides, yes.

Both devices tracked:

the overall heart-rate level
longer increases and decreases in effort
average ride heart rate
broad time-in-zone estimates
general training load

Fitbit Air was more consistent across both tests.

CIRQA had several major artifacts during the first ride, but performed very well during the second. That suggests the first result was not a permanent failure of the device, although CIRQA may be more sensitive to road vibration, fit, or specific riding conditions.

I deliberately did not test either device during short intervals. Fitness trackers often apply smoothing and can lag behind rapid heart-rate changes. Strong performance during steady road cycling does not guarantee equally strong performance during ten-second sprints or repeated hard intervals.

For structured interval training and precise real-time pacing, a chest strap remains the safer choice.

What about gravel cycling?

Both tests were conducted on a road bike and on asphalt.

Gravel riding should be a considerably harder test because of:

higher vibration
repeated impacts
more upper-body movement
frequent changes in grip
greater movement between the tracker and the skin

I will test CIRQA and Fitbit Air on gravel separately. That should provide a better indication of whether the artifacts seen in the first CIRQA ride were related to road vibration and device movement.

Final thoughts

After two road rides, the result is fairly straightforward:

Both Garmin CIRQA and Fitbit Air are accurate enough for ordinary road fitness rides.
Fitbit Air was more accurate in both tests.
CIRQA came very close to Fitbit Air during the second test.
The large CIRQA artifacts from the first ride did not repeat.
The first ride had rougher asphalt and more rolling terrain, while the second was smoother and flatter.
The results do not prove that Fitbit Air has better optical hardware, because the two data pipelines are different.

For everyday cycling and general fitness tracking, I would be comfortable using either device. Fitbit Air currently appears more consistent, while CIRQA’s second result shows that it can also produce a very accurate heart-rate trace under favorable road conditions.

Garmin CIRQA HRV Tracking: Why You Cannot Measure It on Demand

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 21:30:57 GMT

Garmin CIRQA HRV tracking works quietly in the background. The band records overnight HRV, heart rate, resting heart rate, sleep, stress, and other health metrics while you wear it. You can then open Garmin Connect and review the results without manually starting a measurement.

That approach works well for passive health tracking. However, CIRQA has one important limitation: you cannot measure HRV at a specific moment. You cannot sit down in the morning, start a two-minute session, and check your current result. You also cannot use the band as a standard external HRV sensor with an app such as Wellhero.

The device clearly collects the data required for HRV, but Garmin does not currently give users a way to access it on demand.

Garmin CIRQA Does Not Support Health Snapshot

Many Garmin watches include a feature called Health Snapshot. It lets you start a short measurement while sitting still. The session usually lasts around two minutes and records several health metrics, including heart rate and HRV.

Because you control when the session starts, Health Snapshot is useful for measurements taken under consistent conditions. You can run it after waking up, before a workout, after a demanding training session, or whenever you feel unusually tired or unwell.

Garmin CIRQA does not support Health Snapshot. The absence of a screen is not a major issue by itself because Garmin could allow users to start the session from Garmin Connect. However, the app does not currently provide that option either.

As a result, HRV on Garmin CIRQA is recorded automatically during sleep, but there is no way to start a separate measurement during the day. This does not mean that the optical sensor cannot measure it. Garmin already uses the data for overnight HRV, stress, and other recovery features. The limitation is that the user cannot choose when the measurement takes place.

Why Overnight HRV Is Not Always Enough

For many users, overnight tracking is the most useful way to monitor HRV. It is automatic, requires no additional effort, and gives Garmin several hours of data instead of relying on a short sample.

A manual measurement answers a different question. An overnight value summarizes what happened while you were sleeping, while a short session can show your condition at a specific moment. You may want to check it after waking up, before training, after poor sleep, during illness, or following a stressful day.

A manual HRV routine can also be easier to control. You can use the same body position, similar breathing, and the same time of day. This makes it easier to compare one result with another.

CIRQA handles passive overnight tracking well, but it does not support this controlled measurement use case.

Heart Rate Broadcast Does Not Provide RR Intervals Over Bluetooth

CIRQA can broadcast live heart rate to another device or application. At first, this looks like a possible workaround. You might expect to connect the band to an HRV app and run the measurement there.

The problem is that HRV applications need more than a current heart rate value. They require RR intervals, which represent the exact time between individual heartbeats. Metrics such as RMSSD and SDNN are calculated from the variation between these intervals.

A heart rate value such as 60 beats per minute does not provide enough information. The application needs to know whether the intervals between beats were 980 ms, 1,020 ms, 995 ms, and so on.

When CIRQA broadcasts heart rate over Bluetooth, it sends the current heart rate but does not include the RR intervals needed for an external HRV calculation. This means a phone application such as Wellhero can detect the band and display live heart rate, but it cannot calculate HRV from the data it receives.

What makes this limitation even stranger is that CIRQA does transmit RR intervals when broadcasting heart rate over ANT+. I confirmed this by recording an activity on a Garmin Venu connected to CIRQA as an external ANT+ heart rate sensor. The resulting FIT file contained RR interval data.

In other words, CIRQA already produces and transmits the required beat-to-beat information. Garmin simply makes it available over ANT+, but not through the Bluetooth connection used by most phone applications. This appears to be a limitation of the current Bluetooth broadcast implementation rather than a limitation of the optical sensor itself.

Heart Rate Broadcast over Bluetooth therefore cannot replace Health Snapshot or another manual Garmin CIRQA HRV measurement mode. At the same time, the ANT+ data shows that the hardware is already capable of supporting this use case.

Testing Garmin CIRQA HRV Measurements With Wellhero

I tested CIRQA with Wellhero, an application that can run short HRV measurements using a compatible external sensor.

Garmin chest straps work well with Wellhero because they transmit RR intervals. This allows the application to calculate HRV and related metrics. Compatible chest straps from other manufacturers work in the same way.

CIRQA behaves differently. Wellhero can detect the live heart rate sent by the band, but it does not receive RR intervals. Without those intervals, the application cannot calculate HRV.

This comparison makes the limitation clear. Garmin chest straps can provide the data needed for an on-demand measurement, while CIRQA cannot, even though the band already tracks HRV internally during sleep.

The sensor is not necessarily the problem. Access to the data is the problem.

What CIRQA Can and Cannot Replace

CIRQA can replace a smartwatch for several types of passive monitoring. It can collect sleep data, overnight HRV, resting heart rate, stress, and other daily metrics without adding another screen to your wrist.

That is one of the main reasons to use the device. You can wear a smaller screen-free band during work and sleep while keeping a Garmin watch for workouts and other activities.

However, CIRQA does not fully replace a Garmin watch for users who rely on Health Snapshot. It also does not replace a chest strap for applications that calculate HRV from RR intervals.

In my case, Garmin CIRQA works well for sleep and passive recovery tracking, but I still need a compatible Garmin watch or chest strap when I want to measure HRV at a specific time. The band reduces the need to wear a smartwatch throughout the day, but it does not remove the need for another device entirely.

How Garmin Could Improve HRV Measurement on CIRQA

The most obvious improvement would be to let users start Health Snapshot from Garmin Connect. The phone could control the session while CIRQA collected the data, so the band would not need a display or additional physical controls.

Another option would be to include RR intervals in Heart Rate Broadcast. This would allow CIRQA to work with Wellhero and other compatible HRV applications in the same way as a chest strap.

Garmin could also add a separate HRV measurement mode designed specifically for CIRQA. Users could start and stop the session from the phone and receive a short reading under controlled conditions.

Any of these options would improve the product without changing its screen-free design. CIRQA is intended for people who want Garmin health tracking without wearing a full smartwatch, and on-demand HRV would make that concept more complete.

Final Thoughts on Garmin CIRQA HRV Tracking

Garmin CIRQA HRV tracking works for passive overnight monitoring. The device collects data for overnight HRV, sleep, resting heart rate, stress, and other Garmin health metrics.

The missing feature is on-demand access. CIRQA does not support Health Snapshot, Garmin Connect cannot start a manual session, and Heart Rate Broadcast does not transmit RR intervals (via Bluetooth). Because of this, the band cannot be used as a complete HRV sensor with Wellhero.

Garmin chest straps do not have this problem because they transmit the RR intervals required for HRV calculations.

CIRQA can replace a smartwatch for sleep and everyday passive health tracking. For manual HRV measurements, however, you still need a compatible Garmin watch, chest strap, or another device that provides RR intervals.

10 Interesting Things We Learned From Garmin’s Latest Earnings Report

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 11:21:05 GMT

Garmin has published its financial results for the second quarter of 2026. The report contains plenty of accounting language, but it also reveals where Garmin is growing, which products are driving its business, and how the company’s fitness strategy is changing.

Here are 10 of the most interesting takeaways for users of Garmin watches, cycling computers, and fitness trackers.

1. Garmin’s fitness business grew by 25%

Garmin generated approximately $757 million in Fitness revenue during the quarter, up from $605 million a year earlier.

Garmin said every Fitness product category grew, with advanced wearables leading the increase. The Fitness segment includes sports watches, cycling computers, and other training-related devices.

2. Fitness produced almost three quarters of Garmin’s total growth

Garmin’s overall quarterly revenue increased by approximately $208 million. More than $151 million of that increase came from the Fitness segment.

In other words, Fitness devices accounted for roughly 73% of Garmin’s total revenue growth during the quarter. Aviation, marine electronics, outdoor products, and automotive systems contributed far less combined.

3. Fitness is now one of Garmin’s most profitable businesses

The Fitness segment generated $277 million in operating profit, an increase of 40% compared with the same quarter last year.

Its operating margin reached 37%. In simplified terms, Garmin retained about $37 in operating profit for every $100 of Fitness revenue after the segment’s operating costs.

That is an unusually high margin for a business selling physical consumer devices.

4. Garmin is becoming better at selling premium devices

Fitness revenue increased by 25%, but operating profit increased by 40%. Profit is therefore growing much faster than sales.

This suggests that customers are buying more expensive products, Garmin is earning more from each sale, or both. Garmin specifically identified strong demand for advanced wearables as one of the main drivers.

5. CIRQA did not cause the current growth

Garmin highlighted the new CIRQA smart band in its report, but CIRQA was announced after the reporting quarter had already ended.

This means Garmin achieved its 25% Fitness growth almost entirely without CIRQA. The band should instead be viewed as a product intended to support future growth and reach people who want sleep, recovery, and wellness tracking without wearing a smartwatch.

6. Garmin is positioning CIRQA as a subscription-free alternative

Garmin specifically noted that CIRQA provides fitness and wellness insights without requiring a subscription.

That wording appears designed to differentiate CIRQA from Whoop and other services that require users to continue paying after receiving the device. Garmin believes the subscription-free model can expand the market for its wellness products.

7. Sales of adventure watches declined

Garmin’s Outdoor segment recorded a 2% decline in revenue. The company said weaker consumer automotive products and adventure watches were responsible for the decrease.

That creates an interesting contrast:

Garmin’s broader Fitness wearables are growing rapidly.
Its adventure-watch category is currently shrinking.

Some customers may be moving toward more versatile AMOLED sports watches. Another possibility is that buyers are waiting for updated Outdoor products. Garmin expects stronger performance during the second half of the year because of upcoming product launches.

8. Garmin has acquired TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic

Garmin completed the acquisition of two established training platforms:

TrainingPeaks, primarily focused on endurance athletes and coaches
TrainHeroic, with a stronger focus on strength and performance training

Garmin says it wants to grow its services business and strengthen the connection between athletes, coaches, and structured training plans.

For users, this may eventually matter more than another watch release. Garmin now owns a major platform for coaching, workout planning, training-load analysis, and long-term athlete development.

9. Garmin continues to spend heavily on research and development

Garmin spent approximately $304 million on research and development during the quarter, 10% more than a year earlier.

That equals roughly 15% of the company’s total revenue. Garmin is not simply increasing prices and selling existing hardware. It continues to invest heavily in sensors, algorithms, software, aviation systems, and new consumer devices.

10. Garmin expects a record year, although margins should cool down

Garmin raised its full-year 2026 forecast to:

Approximately $8.05 billion in revenue
A 27% operating margin
Approximately $10 in earnings per share

The company’s operating margin was higher in the second quarter at 30.4%, but Garmin expects some decline during the second half of the year. It cited rising memory costs and the absence of another tariff refund as factors affecting future profitability.

What this means for Garmin users

Garmin’s current growth is being driven primarily by fitness and sports devices. The company is successfully selling more premium wearables while expanding its ecosystem in two directions:

Screenless wellness devices such as CIRQA
Training and coaching services through TrainingPeaks and TrainHeroic

Garmin is gradually becoming more than a manufacturer of watches and cycling computers. It is building a broader platform covering training, recovery, coaching, and everyday health tracking.

Screenless Fitness Trackers: Full Comparison

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:15:23 GMT

I put together a detailed comparison table for the main screenless fitness trackers currently on the market: WHOOP 4.0, WHOOP 5.0, Amazfit Helio Strap, Polar Loop, Fitbit Air, and Garmin CIRQA.

The table compares dimensions, weight, battery life, pricing, subscriptions, sensors, sleep and recovery features, workout tracking, GPS, heart-rate broadcasting, and supported wearing positions.

I also separated mandatory and optional subscriptions, since the real cost of ownership differs significantly between these devices.

Full comparison: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M7rADGL5Lz9WiJp3SJN96BEs0TDECn0J5amvC-VKwTk/edit?usp=sharing