Garmin CIRQA just got its biggest firmware update yet

Garmin has just pushed out firmware 3.20 for CIRQA, and this one is a lot more substantial than the last update. There are 19 changes in the changelog, including new button controls, treadmill recalibration, alarm fixes and a few other bits and pieces. 

This is more like it. Firmware 2.50 arrived in August with the wonderfully vague note “improvements to OHR”. Then some CIRQA owners started reporting that Bluetooth heart-rate broadcasting was failing completely or repeatedly dropping its connection. Zwift, Rouvy and TrainerRoad were among the apps affected, while ANT+ continued to work normally. 

Bluetooth broadcasting gets some attention

The line that immediately jumps out in firmware 3.20 is a change to BLE heart-rate broadcasting. Garmin has added support for putting CIRQA into pairing mode while it is broadcasting heart rate, allowing a Bluetooth connection to be established.

There is also a new broadcast prompt for device control. Taken together, those changes look very relevant to the Bluetooth problems that appeared after firmware 2.50, particularly reports where CIRQA simply would not establish a connection with another device or app. 

We would stop short of saying Garmin has definitely fixed the whole problem, though. The changelog does not specifically say that Bluetooth heart-rate dropouts have been fixed. Pairing failures and a connection dropping after it has already paired are not necessarily the same issue, so we will need to see what CIRQA owners experience with 3.20.

Still, this is the first update since those complaints appeared that directly changes how BLE HR broadcasting works. If you use CIRQA with Zwift, TrainerRoad, Rouvy or another Bluetooth device, this is probably the part of the update worth watching most closely.

The button gets more useful

There are some decent quality-of-life changes elsewhere. CIRQA’s physical button can now be configured so either a single press or a press-and-hold starts an activity.

That sounds small, but on a screenless tracker the button carries more weight than it would on a normal Garmin watch. Being able to choose how it behaves should also make accidental activity starts a little easier to avoid.

Garmin has also added treadmill recalibration when users manually enter a distance after covering at least 1.5 km or one mile. Rep counting has been disabled when CIRQA is being used in Upper Arm mode, while rep counts can now be edited afterwards in Garmin Connect Mobile. 

Auto Start LiveTrack gets a change as well. GPS will now be forced on when that feature kicks in, while Garmin has fixed an Android issue that could prevent an adaptive coaching workout from starting.

Alarms and battery behaviour get cleaned up

Garmin has done quite a bit of tidying around alarms. Firmware 3.20 fixes incorrect timing for bedtime approaching notifications and unexpected vibrations from the Smart Wake alarm. CIRQA will also explain how to snooze or dismiss an alarm when alarm settings are saved for the first time.

Battery behaviour has changed too. The low-battery threshold is now 10%, with the critical warning arriving at 5%. Garmin has also fixed the missing low-battery notifications that could occur during an activity and moved Battery Manager into the System menu. 

The remaining changes are mostly cleanup. Garmin has removed unused unit settings, adjusted the default Auto Lap distance when units are changed, fixed a crash involving the lap option during a rowing activity, updated the battery interface in Garmin Connect Mobile and made smaller changes to the app interface and CIRQA’s LED behaviour.

Firmware 3.20 was only at a 20% rollout when Garmin announced it. So it may take a while to reach all users.