Circular used IFA 2026 to announce two rings, the Ring 3 Pro and the Ring 3 Slim, and the feature on both of them is contactless payment. The ring works with Visa and MasterCard cards, though it is not clear whether you can switch between them without your phone nearby. Co-founder Amaury Kosman, interviewed at the show, said "To our knowledge, we are the first smart ring to do payment and health globally." The vibration motor is back as well, after Circular left it out of the Ring 2, and Kosman said the company had not worked out how to combine haptics with ECG readings until this generation. RingConn put a motor in its Gen 3 a fortnight ago, so silent alerts are becoming a ring feature rather than one company's reversal.
The Pro keeps the FDA-cleared ECG for atrial fibrillation and runs up to 12 days between charges. The Slim drops the ECG to get down to 5.9mm wide and 2.35mm thick, which is within a hair of the Oura Ring 5, and it lasts up to 10 days. Both stay subscription-free for the tracking Circular already sold you, but the new blood pressure and glucose features sit behind an opt-in subscription. Neither ring has a price, and the dates from the launch do not agree: one account puts availability in the coming months, another has both rings arriving in 2027. So the thing you cannot do with any of this yet is buy it.