Could Apple Be Entering The Whoop-dominated Screenless Wearables Market?

Apple is reportedly exploring screenless wearable concepts just weeks after Garmin launched Cirqa, suggesting the Whoop-style approach to passive health and fitness tracking is becoming a bigger priority for the industry’s largest players

Apple is reportedly considering a significant departure from the Apple Watch: a screenless wearable.

The company’s industrial design team has explored screenless wearable concepts as part of a broader reconsideration of its watch and health products, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The idea would put the company into a segment that has gained considerably more competition over the past several years.

Whoop has been the most prominent proponent of screenless tracking, building its product around continuous physiological monitoring and delivering the resulting recovery, sleep and strain insights through software rather than a watch face. The company reiterated that strategy with Whoop 5.0 and Whoop MG last year, and in March raised $575 million at a $10.1 billion valuation.

Garmin is now testing a similar form factor with the recent launch of Cirqa, its first screen-free smart band. The $200 device provides 24/7 health and fitness tracking, including heart rate, stress, sleep, HRV status and Garmin’s Body Battery and training readiness metrics, with up to 10 days of battery life. Unlike Whoop, Garmin does not require a subscription for Cirqa’s core functionality.

Google similarly moved into the screenless wearable category earlier this year with the Fitbit Air, a $100 tracker designed for continuous, low-friction health monitoring rather than smartwatch-style interaction. The device offers up to seven days of battery life and routes its data through the Google Health app, where users can access personalized coaching built with Gemini. Google has positioned the Air as its smallest and most affordable tracker, giving the company a lower-cost entry into the same screen-free, always-on segment.

The launch is an interesting expansion for Garmin, which has historically differentiated itself in fitness through feature-heavy watches built for runners, cyclists and other athletes. Cirqa gives the company a way to retain those users when they may not want a full watch on their wrist, while still collecting the sleep, recovery and all-day health data that increasingly feeds Garmin’s training recommendations.

Some People Prefer Screenless Wearables

Many consumers on the subreddit r/Cirqa cite that reason for switching to Cirqa: the desire to stop wearing a smartwatch but still track their health metrics. The value proposition of wearables is moving beyond what users can see during a workout. Sleep, readiness and recovery metrics depend on consistent data collection across days and nights, making wearability and continuity increasingly important alongside GPS accuracy, workout modes or display quality.

Whoop was early to the space, but Garmin’s entry gives consumers another version of that proposition, one connected to a much broader ecosystem of sports watches and training products.

Apple’s Entry Could Change the Market

Apple, if it were to launch a screenless wearable, would have a similar value proposition, if not one more connected to users’ daily life.

Apple Watch has traditionally combined health tracking with a much broader set of smartwatch functions, from communications and apps to payments and notifications. A separate screenless device could allow Apple to offer continuous health monitoring to consumers who do not want to wear an Apple Watch around the clock, or potentially supplement the Watch during sleep and other periods when a smaller device is preferable.

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