Garmin CIRQA Leak: Reviewer Spotted Wearing 5 Optical Bicep Bands

A photo circulating from The5kRunner shows a reviewer wearing five optical heart rate bands simultaneously on their biceps. One of them may be the unannounced Garmin CIRQA, a device that has been leaking in spec sheets and regulatory filings for several months now.

The CIRQA is expected to be Garmin's answer to the Whoop 4.0 and Polar Verity Sense: a standalone optical bicep or arm band focused on continuous HR and recovery metrics without a watch face. If the leaked specs hold, it could position itself directly against Whoop's subscription model, which runs $30 per month, and the one-time purchase Polar Verity Sense at around $90.

Stacking five optical sensors that close together is not just a weird flex for a photo. It is actually a real technical problem. Optical HR sensors work by firing green or red LEDs into the skin and reading the light bounced back by blood flow. Place two sensors within a few centimeters of each other and their LED signals can bleed into adjacent photodiodes, corrupting readings on both devices. This is the same interference issue that makes wearing an Apple Watch and a Whoop on the same wrist unreliable for data accuracy.

For athletes testing multiple devices, the protocol matters as much as the hardware. Running a Garmin HRM-Pro chest strap as ground truth while stacking arm bands is the only clean way to validate accuracy across units. Five simultaneous optical bands without a reference sensor tells you almost nothing useful about which one is performing correctly.

Verdict: the CIRQA leak is credible enough to watch. But the five-band photo raises more questions about testing methodology than it answers about the device itself.