r/the5krunner

Really enjoy how good Modello GMT looks on MIP even after the sunset 🤠 Version 6 is out, update yours if you haven’t yet 👌🏼

Garmin CIRQA Band was tested across six separate heart rate sessions, plus sleep, steps and calories. Here's what held up and what didn't.

On the wrist, it was good in three quite different situations. In a HYROX gym simulation it matched Whoop, Amazfit Balance 3 and Fitbit Air within about a beat, despite several stations involving tight gripping that should restrict blood flow to the wrist. In a flow yoga session it matched four references within a beat despite extreme positions held for 'long' periods. In an outdoor bike ride it matched a Tymewear VitalPro chest strap within about a beat across 5,311 matched data points.

It failed badly in two situations, both involving fast changes in effort or motion. In an open water swim it under-read by 20 to 30bpm against three other devices worn correctly under a wetsuit, its worst result by far. In a running interval session it underestimated heart rate at the start of four of five reps, off by roughly 9 to 10bpm, the largest error of any device in that test.

Moving the band from wrist to biceps and repeating the interval test fixed it completely: it matched an HRM 600 chest strap, a Polar Sense and a wrist-worn Whoop within half a beat each. Same sensor, same person, same interval structure. Only the wear position changed. That reflected consistently better sports performance on the biceps as expected.

Sleep tracking held up reasonably well against an Eight Sleep Pod 5 over 15 nights, resting heart rate and breathing rate in particular. Sleep stage breakdown showed no consistent pattern against any comparator, which is typical of wrist-worn sleep tracking generally rather than a CIRQA-specific issue. Step counts ran consistently high in controlled 500-step tests, on both the wrist and the biceps.

Full review: https://the5krunner.com/2026/08/19/garmin-cirqa-band-review/

ISeems pretty good for most of its intended purposes?

Aqui nós temos o comparativo do GPS , das métricas dos batimentos . Garmin é uma referência quando se fala de esportes e corrida .

Pois bem testei o haylou watch 4 GPS um relógio custo benefício que se mostrou muito eficaz e fiel no GPS nas métricas e nos batimentos . Acompanhou muito bem todas essas métricas e teve um resultado bem satisfatório . Como vcs podem ver aí na imagem . Bem bacana né !!!

I wore a Garmin CIRQA a Whoop MG, a Fitbit Air, an Amazfit Helio, a Polar Loop 2, alongside an Eight Sleep mattress, for 15 nights.

Resting heart rate and breathing rate line up closely across every device, usually within a beat or two. REM and time-awake numbers do not agree between any two devices.

CIRQA reported 48 minutes more REM sleep than Eight Sleep on average, and 42 minutes less time awake, sometimes by over an hour on a single night.

None of these devices can be checked against a true gold standard, so there's no way to say which one is actually right.

Does a sleep-stage number mean anything if six trackers can't agree on it?

https://the5krunner.com/2026/08/15/garmin-cirqa-sleep-accuracy

Garmin filed a CIRQA Smart Ring for certification with Indonesian authorities on 12 August. The certificate was pulled from the database the next day.

Garmin has publicly ruled out a smart ring twice before:

• once at its 2024 Health Summit, citing sensor accuracy, and
• again in February 2026 in response to an analyst question on an earnings call.

The ring will carry the same CIRQA name as the screen-free band Garmin launched in July, but the marketing pitch would be different. Finger-based sensors read resting heart rate and HRV more cleanly than a wrist sensor, which suits sleep and recovery tracking well. During exercise, blood is redirected away from the fingers toward the working muscles, which is exactly the scenario where Garmin's wrist sensors have built their reputation.

Will a company that has spent years arguing wrist placement is essential for sports accuracy actually go through with a smart ring?

Full timeline: https://the5krunner.com/2026/08/13/garmin-cirqa-ring-what-we-know/

Note: AI generated image for illustration only.

There is a detail in the Pixel Watch 5 GPS announcement that has been largely passed over. The accuracy improvement does not happen on the watch and so cannot happen during the run. The watch compresses its raw satellite data, uploads it, and Google's servers then check the track against 3D models of the buildings along the route, work out which satellite signals could have arrived directly and which bounced off something first, and redraw the line. Google says it validated this over 4,000 miles - sounds a lot, but it isn't.

The reason Google went down this route is interesting in itself. Dual-frequency GPS is supposed to reject reflected signals, and it does, but only when the reflection has travelled far enough to be distinguishable. On L5 that threshold is around 29 metres of extra path, and on the older L1 signal it is around 290 metres. A building on the other side of a normal street is fifteen or twenty metres away, so the reflection arrives well inside the threshold and the watch has no way to identify it. Knowing the building is physically there sidesteps the problem entirely.

What it does not do is touch anything you look at while running. Pace, lap pace and interval distance all come off the watch in real time.

A perfect track that only exists once the run is over: does that actually change anything for a runner?

Further reading: https://the5krunner.com/2026/08/13/pixel-watch-5-gps-accuracy-postprocessing/

Gemini-generated image

Hey everyone 👋,

I have just pushed a massive update for SportVitals to the App Store. This release includes a fully native iPad experience, advanced on-device AI coaching, and deep sleep analytics.

Here is a breakdown of what is new:

📱 Native iPad Application

• Full iPadOS Support: SportVitals is now fully optimized for the iPad. Experience your data on a larger display with an expansive dashboard tailored to take advantage of iPadOS, making it easier to analyze your trends in detail.

🤖 AI Coach & Apple Intelligence

• On-Device AI Coach: Native integration with Apple Intelligence (FoundationModels) delivers personalized athletic recovery and training guidance while keeping your data 100% private and on-device.
• Clinical Context Builder: The AI automatically evaluates recent trends in your HRV, Energy Reserve, Stress, Sleep, and Workout load to provide highly tailored recommendations.
• Smart Fallback Engine: Guaranteed deterministic and contextualized guidance even on devices without local generative AI capabilities.
• Chat Interface: Access the AI Coach anywhere via the new floating action button. The complete conversation sheet features saved chat history, dynamic prompt suggestions, and responsive transcript rendering.

🛏️ Sleep Need & Automated Health Reports

• Sleep Need Algorithm: Dynamically calculates your target nightly sleep hours based on your historical sleep baseline, accumulated sleep debt, recent training load (TRIMP / ATL), and overnight autonomic nervous system recovery (HRV / RMSSD).

🧬 Biological Age Tracking

• History & Breakdown View: A dedicated view to track biological versus chronological age trends over time and inspect individual contributing factors.

🏋️ Workout Insights, Elevation & Social Share

• Elevation Profiles: Added detailed elevation profile visualizations for all GPS-tracked workouts.
• AI Workout Insights: Automated post-workout analysis delivering recovery time estimates and training impact feedback.
• Social Workout Share Cards: Generate customizable graphic cards featuring your workout metrics (route map, steps, average HR, elevation gain, calories) designed perfectly for sharing on social platforms.

⌚ Unified Widgets & Apple Watch Updates

• Unified Widget: A new iOS and iPadOS Home Screen and Lock Screen widget presenting your Readiness, Sleep, and Strain in a single glanceable layout.
• Accessory Widgets & Complications: Expanded accessory widgets with direct deep-linking to specific metric views.
• Watch Complication Throttling: Intelligent throttling of complication updates to maximize your Apple Watch battery life.

⚡ General Optimizations

• New settings view.
• I have also optimized the memory footprint for heart rate processing, improved intraday chart rendering, and implemented general performance and UI responsiveness improvements across all platforms.

The update is on verification on the App Store right now. Go grab it and let me know what you think of the new iPad layout and the AI Coach! 🏃‍♂️💨

Garmin has filed five new model numbers since June: A05216, A05146, A05419, A05420 and A05170. Compairing their details and Garmin's own filing history gives a clearer picture than any of the current rumour sites.

• Enduro 4 (A05216) carries no satellite or LTE hardware at all, contradicting earlier leaks that expected it.
• The base Fenix 9 splits into two filings, one AMOLED, one MIP-Solar, filed the same day, the same pattern Garmin used for Fenix 8 before any Pro tier existed.
• Fenix E 2 looks like the lone unpaired filing. (or Fenix 9E)
• Fenix 9 Pro - The only satellite and cellular hardware in the whole set sits in a fifth filing, A05170, but that's unusually close to the non-pro models

Full breakdown, including a confidence and expiry table for each filing: https://the5krunner.com/2026/08/06/garmin-fenix-e2-9-amoled-mip-solar-pro-enduro/

thoughts on the logic are welcome.

Garmin's CIRQA is the only screenless tracker among five current options that kept a physical button. WHOOP 5.0 still has the deepest app and the longest battery life at 14 days. Fitbit Air and the Amazfit Helio Strap both launched at $99.99, tied as the cheapest devices in this group. The Helio Strap Pro adds a waist sensor that reads muscular load station by station during a HYROX race, a feature none of the others attempts.

Which is best?

Further reading: https://the5krunner.com/2026/08/06/cirqa-vs-whoop-comparison/