Circular's Ring 3 can tap to pay. Shipping is a 2027 problem

Dan Bracaglia held the new Circular Ring 3 over a payment reader on the IFA floor, waited for a small buzz, and that was the demo. No watch face. No phone unlock. Visa or Mastercard, Circular says, and the ring does the rest. Oura still cannot do that. Samsung's Galaxy Ring still cannot do that. The catch is printed in a smaller font: Circular has not named a price, has not named a ship date tighter than early 2027, and has not named which cards actually work.

The Paris company split the Ring 3 into two sizes at IFA. The Pro keeps FDA-cleared ECG and atrial fibrillation detection, blood-pressure trends, and glucose trends, and Circular quotes up to 12 days of battery. The Slim drops the ECG so the band can shrink to 5.9mm wide and 2.35mm thick, about 1.9 to 3 grams depending on size, with up to 10 days. Both add the vibration motor Circular removed from last year's Ring 2, and both add NFC. The Ring 2 started at $349 and, unlike Oura, did not put the core app behind a subscription. That last point is already fraying.

Amaury Kosman, Circular's CEO, told Jane McGuire at Tom's Guide the haptics came back because owners asked. “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.” The motor is for silent alarms, medication reminders, guided breathing and health alerts, not a full notification feed. Bracaglia tried it on the stand and called the buzz “subtle but noticeable.” He wants to know if it will wake a heavy sleeper. That is a bedroom test, not a booth test.

The Slim exists because the category got thinner. Kosman told McGuire the Pro's extra sensors would have kept the ring at Ring 2 bulk, “I won't say bulky,” and the company wanted a jewelry-shaped option. In an email to TechCrunch he put it more neatly: “We understand that not everyone wants every health feature.” The Slim keeps sleep, heart rate, HRV, SpO2, skin temperature and activity, plus payments. It skips the medical-ish ECG that is Circular's usual differentiator. If you are buying a ring for AFib detection, the Slim is the wrong SKU. If you are buying a ring because Oura 5 looks like a ring and yours looks like a tracker, the Slim is the one Circular built for the mirror.

“Payment is something every big ring manufacturer has been trying to achieve, and we're very happy to be able to combine payments and health tracking,” Kosman told Tom's Guide. “To our knowledge, we are the first smart ring to do payment and health globally.” Taylor Kerns at Android Authority treated that as the headline and then asked the question the booth did not answer. Circular says “supported Visa and Mastercard cards.” Kerns wrote that we do not yet know which Visas and Mastercards are supported, or how payments will actually work. A ring that pays is a watch-killer only if the terminal accepts it on a Tuesday in a country you actually visit.

Andrew Liszewski at The Verge noted the Pro is slimmer than the Ring 2, titanium inside and out, with a charging case that can refill the ring five or six times before the case itself needs a plug. The Slim uses a biocompatible resin on the inner surface instead of titanium. Both are rated to 50 metres, sizes 6 through 14, in gold, rose gold, silver and black. Those are catalogue facts. The payment stack is a 2027 software problem sitting on 2026 hardware photos.

Kosman told McGuire the rings stay subscription-free for the basics. Blood pressure and glucose monitoring will need a paid opt-in. That is a change from the Ring 2 pitch Android Authority still recites: $349, full feature set, no Oura-style membership. CNET's Vanessa Hand Orellana still described the Ring 3 pair as subscription-free while listing glucose trends and an AI coach among the extras. Those two sentences can both be true if the coach and the new metabolic features are the paid layer. Anyone who bought Circular to escape a membership should read the checkout screen twice.

Bracaglia reviewed the Ring 2 a year ago and liked the battery and the ECG. He also said a buggy app held it back, and that Circular has since overhauled the companion app, whose Kira AI coach is the feature the company now leads with. That rebuild matters more than the NFC demo. A payment chip is a commodity. A ring that syncs, lasts 10 or 12 days, and does not nag you into a plan is the product Circular has been trying to be. IFA gave it a tap-to-pay story. Early 2027 is when we find out whether the cards work, whether the buzz wakes anyone, and whether the free tier still means free.