GoKawiilCircular is putting mobile payments at your fingertips with its new Circular Ring 3 series. Announced at IFA, the consumer tech show in Berlin, the Circular Ring 3 Pro and Circular Ring 3 Slim are bringing more smartwatch-like capability to the ring category.
Both models add contactless payments to Circular’s existing health tracking and bring back the haptic vibration feature from the original Circular Ring. That means the rings can buzz your finger for app notifications, medication reminders and health alerts without a screen or phone as the middle man.
The screen-free wearable category is having its moment in the spotlight with an explosion of new rings and wrist-based trackers from Oura, Ultrahuman, Google and Garmin promising to track long-term health trends round the clock without the battery limitations and distractions that come along with tiny smartwatch screens. But that same lack of a screen has limited how much these devices can do beyond collecting health data.
Circular, based in Paris, is carving out its own lane by pushing more functionality onto the finger. Its FDA-cleared ECG feature and AFib detection, and NFC payments and haptic alerts push the Ring 3 series closer to smartwatch territory, without giving up the low-profile design that draws people to rings in the first place.
The trade-off is that Circular’s platform still isn’t as established as competitors such as Oura, Whoop and Google, which have had more time to build out their health insights, coaching and ecosystems.
The Ring 3 lineup also expands Circular’s health tracking with blood pressure trends, glucose trend estimates and advanced sleep metrics. But without FDA clearance, these remain wellness features designed for spotting trends and more conversation starters with a doctor rather than diagnostic tools.
Circular/CNET
Circular Ring 3 Slim vs. Circular Ring 3 Pro
Both rings share Circular’s core health tracking, NFC payments and the returning haptic vibration motor, but there are some important hardware differences.
Dimensions: As the name suggests, the Ring 3 Slim is a lot smaller, in both height and width, than the Pro and the previous generation, putting it closer to the ultra-slim Oura Ring 5, which was the smallest ring I’d tested at the time. The Ring 3 Pro, by contrast, is also slightly shorter than its predecessor, but it’s gained thickness and weighs exactly the same as the Gen 2 ring.
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