New Delhi: Garmin’s CIRQA is a better-specced band than Google’s Fitbit Air on paper. Whether it beats it is a different question, and the Rs 12,000 gap between them makes that hard to answer.
Start with the price. Garmin has priced the CIRQA at Rs. 25,990 in India. Google’s Fitbit Air went on sale on October 2 at Rs 13,999. That’s nearly double. It also lands above Whoop, whose entry plan starts at ₹21,990 with a 12-month membership. A Garmin band costing more than Whoop is not where most people expected this to land.
So what does the extra money buy? Quite a lot, actually. The CIRQA offers up to 10 days of battery, and its core features work without a subscription. Fitbit Air manages up to seven days. Garmin’s list of metrics is long: Body Battery, Training Readiness, VO2 max, HRV status, skin temperature, breathing variations during sleep, and 80-plus trackable activities. It can also borrow your phone’s GPS for pace and distance. Runners and gym people will notice that.
Google’s pitch is different. The Fitbit Air tracks 24/7 heart rate, heart rhythm with Afib alerts, SpO2, heart rate variability and sleep stages. The Afib alerts are worth noting, since Garmin’s published feature list doesn’t mention them. Google does say these aren’t meant for medical use, so don’t read too much into that.
The catch with Google is the subscription. Some of the deeper insights and coaching need a Premium plan, and the box comes with a three-month trial. Garmin has the same split, with optional Connect+ adding AI insights, coaching plans and nutrition tracking. Neither company is giving you the full experience for free forever. Garmin’s free tier just seems to be the more generous one.
Then there’s timing. Google got to Indian shelves first and has a familiar brand, a cheaper sticker price, and three band styles including a dressier one that looks like a bracelet. The CIRQA comes in Mauve, French Grey, Black and Captain Blue, and it has a fabric strap. It doesn’t have the same range of looks.
I haven’t worn either band, so I can’t say how accurate they are. That matters more than any spec sheet, and sleep and heart rate numbers can differ between devices more than you’d think. Independent reviews will tell us more than the launch material does.
My read is that they’re after different buyers. If you want a cheap, simple, screenless tracker that works with your Android phone, the Fitbit Air makes more sense. If you’re a training-focused user who already uses Garmin Connect and will pay for deeper recovery data, the CIRQA has a real case.
For most people shopping on price, though, it probably doesn’t beat the Fitbit Air. Rs 25,990 is a lot to ask for a band with no screen.
