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The Ring 3 Pro carries the FDA-cleared ECG and the extra 0.43mm of thickness that comes with it, while the Slim keeps tap-to-pay and drops the sensor to stay slim. Neither has a price, and neither is expected before 2027.
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A ring is a volume budget with a battery in it, which is why Circular's engineering explanation is more useful than its feature list. Co-founder and CEO Amaury Kosman told Tom's Guide that at the time of the Ring 2 the company "didn't have the knowledge to combine the new ECG readings and the vibration," and that the Ring 3 Pro has now managed it [7]. He also says the ECG is the only feature that would make a ring bigger [10].
The measurements bear that out. The Pro is 6.8mm wide and 2.78mm thick, the Slim 5.9mm and 2.35mm [12][11]. So the clinical sensor costs 0.9mm of width and 0.43mm of thickness [17]. Against the Oura Ring 5's quoted dimensions, the Slim comes out 0.19mm narrower and 0.07mm thicker [18][13], which is to say it sits in the same place on the hand. Battery improves too, to 12 days on the Pro and 10 on the Slim from 7 on the Ring 2 [14], five extra days on the Pro or about 71 percent more [19].
The line that will matter on a support call is the billing one. Both rings stay subscription-free, and blood pressure and glucose monitoring require an opt-in subscription [9]. Sort the features by which side of that line they land on. The ECG, which the report describes as FDA-cleared for AFib detection [3], costs millimetres and no money. The two features with no stated regulatory clearance [21] cost no millimetres and recur monthly. The parts a buyer can measure arrive in the box, and the readings that require trust arrive as a line item.
Kosman's payments claim is his own and hedged: to his knowledge, Circular is the first smart ring to do payment and health globally [8]. It is a first-mover claim with a 2027 delivery date attached, and the Tom's Guide report names no bank, card network or launch market [16]. First is a fragile thing to be for a year in public, especially when the hard part of on-finger payments is not the antenna but whose rails you are allowed to use.
Here is the sorting rule worth carrying into your own hardware or roadmap review. One column for features that change the physical object, one for features that keep charging after purchase. On Circular's own account, the ECG belongs in the first column only, blood pressure and glucose in the second only, and payments and haptics in neither [20]. The second column is the cheap one to announce and the hard one to verify, which is why it keeps filling up.
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
The Circular Ring 3 Slim is a smaller, lighter version of the Pro without on-board ECG readings, but with the same contactless payments and essential health monitoring.
Kosman confirmed both rings will remain subscription-free, but users will have to opt into a subscription to use new blood pressure and glucose monitoring features.
Kosman said the only thing removed for the Slim is the ECG, "because that's the only feature that would make the ring bigger", and that the Slim still has the vibrations, payments and other health features.
Circular announced two new smart rings at IFA 2026: the Circular Ring 3 Pro and the Circular Ring 3 Slim.
Both new rings enable wearers to make contactless payments with their fingers, receive haptic alerts to wake up without an alarm, and set health reminders.
The Circular Ring 3 Pro has FDA-cleared ECG for AFib detection, haptic vibration alerts, and NFC contactless payments.
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Evidence-backed comparisons of source perspectives and observed adoption signals. Read the methodology
Which Builder, Operator, and Investor concerns the observed source mix emphasized—not a truth score.
Evidence, demonstrated adoption, hype gap, incentives, and confidence are assessed independently, each on its own current evidence. How these are measured.
One interview, no hardware touched
Specs, clearance, battery and payments all reach us the same way: Circular's CEO, at a trade show, in a single Tom's Guide sit-down that ends by promising testing later. The figures are quoted to a hundredth of a millimetre, which reads as rigour but is only precision — no clearance record, no wallet partner, no measurement anyone outside the company took.
Announced only, nothing on a finger
Nothing here is in use by anyone. The only events are an IFA announcement and a described subscription tier for sensors that have not shipped; the rings are expected in 2027 with no date, no price and no named bank or network to pay at.
A global first, staked a year early
"To our knowledge, we are the first smart ring to do payment and health globally" is carrying a product with no price, no ship date before 2027 and no payment partner named. The hedge belongs to Kosman, and Tom's Guide passes it through intact rather than testing it. The subscription blood pressure and glucose features stretch further still: the ECG gets a clearance claim, they get none.
IFA access, and a firsts race
The setting shapes the copy. Circular gets to plant a global first fifteen months before shipping and to introduce a recurring fee as an optional extra on a ring it can still call subscription-free; the publisher gets an exclusive CEO sit-down at IFA and closes by asking readers to make it a preferred source. Neither incentive points toward asking who processes the payment.
Sure what was said, unsure what it means
What Kosman said is well captured and internally coherent — the size penalty, the haptics-plus-ECG story and the battery gains all hang together. But a single publisher, a single interviewee, no tested hardware and more than a year of runway means most of this is unfalsifiable today and revisable before it ships.