diff --git a/tools/circleci_dependencies.sh b/tools/circleci_dependencies.sh
index d959f2becec..944c7f53111 100755
--- a/tools/circleci_dependencies.sh
+++ b/tools/circleci_dependencies.sh
@@ -1,15 +1,17 @@
 #!/bin/bash -ef
 
+ONLY_BINARY="--only-binary \"numpy,dipy,scipy,matplotlib,pandas,statsmodels,netCDF4,h5py\""
+
+set -x
 python -m pip install --upgrade "pip>=25.1" build
-python -m pip install --upgrade --progress-bar off \
+python -m pip install --upgrade --progress-bar off $ONLY_BINARY \
     -ve .[full] \
     --group=test \
     --group=doc \
     -r doc/sphinxext/related_software.txt \
-    --only-binary "numpy,dipy,scipy,matplotlib,pandas,statsmodels" \
     "git+https://github.com/mne-tools/mne-bids.git" \
     "git+https://github.com/mne-tools/mne-qt-browser.git" \
     "git+https://github.com/pyvista/pyvista.git" \
     "git+https://github.com/sphinx-gallery/sphinx-gallery.git"
-python -m pip install --upgrade --progress-bar off --no-deps \
+python -m pip install --upgrade --progress-bar off --no-deps $ONLY_BINARY \
     -r doc/sphinxext/related_software_nodeps.txt