Can a mobile app provide data for a watch face without standalone wear app?

Question

It's not clear for me from the docs. Is it possible for a mobile app to be data provider for complications or I must have a standalone wear app?

Answer 1

Here's an information regarding data provider for Android Wear. "A watch face never has direct access to a data provider. It will instead receive a callback when new data is available for the complications that the user has selected. Meanwhile, the data provider doesn’t know how the exposed information will be displayed: That is completely up to the watch face, depending on its style." You can check this blogpost for more details.

Answer 2

A complication data provider can only exist on the wearable device. It has to extend the ComplicationProviderService class, which is only available on the Wear OS platform (as part of the wearable support library).

How you chose to distribute this data provider is up to you. You can create an application that only contains the service, or you can bundle it with an existing Wear OS application or watch face.

So the answer to your questions are:

• No, a mobile app can't be a complication data provider.
• No, you don't have to have a standalone wear app. However, you do have to have something on the wearable device.