IFA 2026: Circular adds payments to two new smart rings

Circular announced and showed two new smart rings at IFA 2026: the Circular Ring 3 Pro and Circular Ring 3 Slim. Both add NFC contactless payments and haptic alerts, while the Pro includes an FDA-cleared ECG for atrial fibrillation detection.

The launch splits Circular’s hardware strategy. The Pro has ECG, vibration and payments. The Slim removes ECG to reduce the ring’s size and weight, but keeps haptic alerts, payments and what Circular describes as essential health monitoring.

Circular co-founder and CEO Amaury Kosman said the company brought vibration back after removing it from the Circular Ring 2. The change followed customer feedback, and Circular says it has worked out how to combine haptic alerts with the newer ECG hardware.

“At the time, we didn’t have the knowledge to combine the new ECG readings and the vibration, but with the Circular Ring 3 Pro, we’ve succeeded.”

Pro and Slim: the hardware split

The two rings share the features most likely to affect daily use: contactless payments, haptic wake-up alerts and health reminders. The main technical distinction is ECG. The Ring 3 Pro has it; the Ring 3 Slim does not.

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The Slim’s dimensions put it close to the Oura Ring 5 figures cited for comparison: 6.09mm wide and 2.28mm thick. The choice is between a slimmer ring and ECG hardware in a thicker one.

Kosman said the Pro is not larger than the current Ring 2 in overall dimensions, but adding features led Circular to offer a slimmer alternative. The company removed ECG rather than vibration because ECG was the component that required additional space.

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“We wanted to do a slimmed-down version of the Circular Ring 3 Pro because, of course, adding a lot of features to a ring makes it — I won’t say bulky, as it’s the same dimensions as the current Circular Ring 2 — but we’ve seen a move towards a slimmer shape. That’s why we came up with the Circular Ring 3 Slim. The only thing we removed is the ECG, because that’s the only feature that would make the ring bigger. It still has the vibrations, payments and other health features.”

Payments come with a subscription boundary

Circular is positioning payments as a major addition. Kosman said the company believes the two new rings are the first smart rings to combine payments and health tracking globally, though that claim is Circular’s and has not been independently verified in the supplied material.

The company also confirmed that the rings will remain subscription-free for their core functions. That does not mean every health feature is included: users will need to opt into a subscription to use the new blood-pressure and glucose-monitoring features.

The hardware’s feature set and its recurring-cost feature set are different. Buyers can use the rings without a subscription, but the new blood-pressure and glucose-monitoring features will require an optional paid service. Circular has not announced the subscription price or explained which specific measurements are included in the base experience.

The rings are designed to provide alerts without a phone or conventional alarm. Haptic vibration can wake the wearer, and Circular says users will also be able to set health reminders. The reporting does not specify the vibration patterns, alert controls, payment wallet compatibility or how payment credentials are secured on the rings.

Battery gains, but no price yet

Circular says the Ring 3 Pro will run for up to 12 days and the Ring 3 Slim for up to 10 days. Those figures are improvements over the Ring 2's seven-day battery life, although the company has not supplied test conditions or clarified whether ECG use, haptic alerts and contactless payments affect the quoted maximums.

Both new rings are expected to launch in 2027. Circular has not announced an exact release date, US availability, or pricing for either model. The Slim is smaller and lighter, but its final cost relative to the ECG-equipped Pro is unknown.

The IFA 2026 announcement is not a retail launch. Circular has shown the hardware and outlined the feature split, but US buyers cannot yet order either ring based on the information released here. The price is also unknown for a product that combines a payment feature with an optional subscription for blood-pressure and glucose monitoring.