I can’t imagine running regular Android on the watch. The gestures are so different than a phone and app interactions, etc. I’d recommend staying with the Wear OS and getting a cheaper or even older model if needed. I’ve been meaning to write-up my use of the Marvels and my Wear watch, so here you go, like it or not
I’ve got the Marvels, a Note 8 and an LG G Watch R. The watch is 3 years old, but it’s running the latest Android Wear on it. I get a full day and it’s still got around 40% left of use and then charge it every single night. That’s no wifi on the watch, just BLE to the phone. I also have the screen on 100% of the time so I can use it like a real watch. Really impressive, especially on a 3 year old daily use watch. They are running $35+ used on ebay and $110 new.
There is no Android Wear app for the Phonak Remote, which is a real bummer. But they’ve got a LONG way to go with just the regular app, let alone a Wear app. Still, I find the watch very useful while wearing the hearing aids, even though they don’t technically talk with each other directly, (everything runs through the phone). I prefer to look down at my watch when a call comes in, and if I answer by swiping on my watch, the call is routed through my Marvels. The best use is for the music streaming from my phone. I play/pause and control the volume on the watch and it’s more convenient. I’ve really come to enjoy having music playing, (instead of my tinnitus) and several times a day I’ll need to quickly pause the music if someone walks into my office. The new Wear version is much better for music management than even a few months ago.
Another thing I really like about the watch is using it’s microphone for the Google Assistant while driving. I drive a big noisy truck for my commute, and it’s been awesome to be able to stream music and then mute my Marvel mics to block the road noise. So nice! The problem arises when you shout “Hey Google, broadcast I’m on my way home”, or “Hey Google, listen to Metallica” the Marvels know that my mic’s are muted and kick them on to send my voice to my phone/assistant. If I give the command directly to my watch, it has no idea my mic’s are muted and it just does what it’s supposed to do and I don’t have to re-mute the mics after the interaction. Now what would really be nice is if the engineers noted the mic state before turning them on and then put them back when I was done!
A final note on the app and why I don’t think it’s practical to use it on a watch with the Marvels. The Remote app uses BLE for programming. There are some issues pairing these things with multiple devices, so you’re probably going to have to pick one and stick with it, (phone or watch). The phone app is terribly slow in connecting/syncing/making changes. It’s several seconds which seems like an eternity when you’re just needing a quick tweak in a meeting or something. They really, really need stay in touch with the Marvels and stay in sync and then just allow a quick up/down volume or program change to be sent. I don’t care if it takes several seconds for the request to be fulfilled, but don’t make me stare at the app while they connect to the devices and then refresh the settings and refresh the screen and then the screen times out and I turn it back on and it has to re-connect all over again. So frustrating! Trying to do that on a watch, keeping the screen active and dealing with the crummy interface and design of the app would be incredible difficult IMHO. I haven’t broken out code or Tasker to see if there is a way to hack that app and do some automation or skills for it, but it’s on my to do list.
Sorry for the long post.