I do it to stream music and podcasts. I have Phonak Marvels. I just have to go through the somewhat cumbersome procedure of the pairing process to pair directly to the watch. Anything stored in the watches memory can be played pretty much anywhere. It helps to wear the watch on the same side of my body as the control HA when walking, as my body can block the low power BT signal while swinging my arms. When both the watch and iPhone are connected by Wi-Fi, very few if any limitations as to connectivity (except blocking the BT signal). I do think the watch has a much lower BT signal than the iPhone.
How to Create an Apple Watch Complication for an MFi HA for which the smartphone app can also run on the Apple Watch.
My demonstration here is specifically for the ReSound Smart 3D app and involves iOS v14.2 and WatchOS 7.1. But it should work for any other OEM HA MFi smartphone app that also allows you to install a Apple Watch version of the smartphone app on your watch. And it is intended to solve problems like that for the ReSound Smart 3D, which claims to have a “complication” for the Apple Watch but that complication doesn’t show up functionally for me on my Apple Watch.
What is a “complication?!” Essentially, it is a shortcut that can appear on your chosen watch face Home Screen that allows you to launch some aspect of an app (or the entire app itself) by tapping on the complication icon. That way you can avoid extra steps of going to the app list or the docker on the watch to scroll, find, and launch the app. Below is a photo of my current Infograph watch face with a red arrow pointing to the ReSound Smart 3D app SHORTCUT that I created as a complication to launch the Smart 3D app on my watch.
The app won’t quite launch straight away. A confirmation screen zips up with “Run 3D App?” and I just tap on the RUN button to get the app going. It all happens VERY FAST on an Apple Watch 6. The watch has to be connected to your iPhone via BT/Wi-Fi as the watch is essentially serving as a remote control to the iPhone.
Here is a step-by-step illustration of how I created the ReSound watch SHORTCUT complication on my iPhone. It should work for other HA OEM smartphone apps that can be installed on the Apple Watch, too.
On the iPhone, I launch the SHORTCUTS app, tap the MY SHORTCUTS tab on bottom left, and click ALL SHORTCUTS (red arrow) on the screen that comes up.
On the ALL SHORTCUTS screen, I tap the “+” sign in the top right to create a new shortcut.
On the NEW SHORTCUT screen, I tap “Add an action.”
On the ADD AN ACTION screen, I pick the SCRIPTING CHOICE
On the SCRIPTING screen, I pick the “Open App” option.
After choosing the Open App as the Scripting action choice, one will be back on the New Shortcut screen with the Scripting Action added but no app to launch chosen. Click the CHOICES button.
On the CHOOSE APP screen, I scroll down and pick the “Smart 3D” app choice
After choosing one’s hearing aid app (Smart 3D for me), one is back on the New Shortcut screen and one clicks NEXT to configure the Shortcut icon color and name
On the next page, the two arrows point to the locations by which one can configure Shortcut icon color and name. After doing so, click the DONE button at the top left.
The last few steps are to make sure the Shortcut created on the iPhone will also be available on the Apple Watch to use as a “complication.” In the ALL SHORCUTS page loaded from the MY SHORTCUTS tab in the iPhone Shortcuts app, find the shortcut that you created and tap on the “…” menu choice.
On the shortcut details page (3D App shortcut in my case), click the further “…” menu of choices in the upper left.
On your shortcut DETAILS page, make sure the “Show on Apple Watch” option is checked.
I am assuming anyone who wants to do this knows how to add and remove “complications” from an Apple Watch face. Now when you edit complications on a Watch face and want to add the scripted launch of your HA app, under the Shortcuts list for complications, you should find the shortcut that you created and named as above. After adding the shortcut as a complication, you should be able to directly and VERY rapidly launch your HA app from your watch Home Screen.
Creating this tutorial was pretty “complicated” (pun intended). Hope I didn’t omit anything useful.
There is a bit of flakiness in the dependability of the Shortcut complication. Usually it works GREAT! But I went through a period where the the app on the iPhone worked great but neither launching the Shortcut on the watch nor launching the app directly on the watch would connect me to the HA app. Tried rebooting watch, iPhone, HA’s but nothing rescued connecting from the watch. Then after letting everything sit overnight and charging and rebooting my HA’s, the watch app was back to working great. I wondered whether rechargeable HA battery level might be a “complication?!”
The other complication is that it’s supposed to be possible to take Apple Watch screenshots by pressing the crown and side button on the watch simultaneously. Doesn’t work for me. So much for everything with Apple “just works.”
But the Apple Watch Gen 6 with a ReSound Smart 3D app Shortcut as a complication on my watch face Home Screen is astounding. And who knows, maybe I can also create a shortcut (double simultaneous virtual button press?!) to take the Apple Watch screenshots that I haven’t been able to manage manually (all the screen captures above except for a cell phone photo of the watch face were done via the iPhone Shortcut app).
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Jim, thanks for the great write up of how to use shortcuts to add this complication 
I found this Apple support article, on how to enable taking a snapshot on the apple watch. This might help you on that one.
And one thing I had figured out a while ago is that the older Apple Watch faces do support adding the Smart 3D complication directly. Try on either the Simple or Utility faces as an example. Although with IOS 14/WatchOS 7, the icon doesn’t show up anymore - but if you press the watch where you put the complication it will bring up the Smart 3D app on the watch.
I’ve sent an email to resound asking if they can add their complication support to the newer faces, and letting them know about the problem with the icon. I’ll report back here what I hear from them.
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Thanks for the suggestions. I had previously gone through the Apple Watch procedure for enabling Watch screenshots but it just doesn’t work for me on a Watch 6 running WatchOS 7.1 for some reason - maybe the usual OS upgrade idiosyncrasies that need to be ironed out? I did somehow take a screenshot on a non-watch face screen and it got transferred to my iPhone Photos. But only managed to generate that single one in many, many two-fingered tries after enabling screenshots.
I did find as you say that the ReSound Smart 3D app will appear in the list of available complications for the Simple and Utility watch faces and I can add it to either but just as you say, not for the modern watch faces. Since one can have the most complications on the Infograph watch face, that’s the one that I want to add the 3D complication to but the Shortcut method will tide me over 'til ReSound fixes things with Apple on that score.
I do find that there is a Smart 3D icon for the Simple and Utility watch faces, though. For me, it doesn’t show up when editing the watch face from the iPhone but it does show when editing either watch face directly on the Apple Watch. And the 3D complication also shows up when using either watch face. The 3D complication is a TINY hearing aid! And strangely enough, it’s white for the Simple watch face, red for the Utility watch face. There doesn’t seem to be a means to change the complication color?
I think you’re having fun with your new toy! :>) Is Microsoft Flight Sim getting jealous?
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@MDB Yes, there’s the watch plus the upcoming Black Friday deals. There’s an interesting Apple Watch battery utility that can actually read ReSound Quattro rechargeable battery levels apparently just by intercepting their “in-the-clear” BT-like transmission but I don’t think because of obvious security concerns it can interrogate the HA’s for their battery level, which detracts from the useful timeliness of such an ability.
For the Apple Watch and the iPhone one can set high and low charge notifications but unfortunately not for the Quattro rechargeable HA’s (I’ve already contacted the Battery Life developer about it and suggested that he work with ReSound).
If you use the Battery Life app too much (as I did when I first installed it), you can run down the battery on the device that you’re using for interrogation of your other devices. To counteract that, I’ve switched to “manual” interrogation mode except when I really want to go with auto background refresh. In the app’s settings, I’ve turned off background refresh and turned off all Siri options, which I really don’t need and may be a PR thing.
The Battery Life app has an Apple Watch complication, too, which I’ve set on a secondary watch face that I can just swipe to from my primary Infograph one and the complication will display Apple Watch and iPhone battery levels at a glance and launch the app with a tap.
Just tried and it does not work for me either on the Watch 6 with watchOS 7.1. I never used it that much, but it did work on my old Watch 4 with watchOS 6.x. I already have open tickets with Apple Support, time for one more. Gah!
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TIA, where does one go to open a ticket with Apple Support? I would hope that they’d be like Microsoft for Windows and have a built-in feedback mechanism similar to the Windows Feedback Hub where one can actually see and review all the feedback one has submitted, see who’s upvoted or further commented on their own experience relative to your feedback item, and see if there is any official reply from the support folks. That would certainly be one of my Support Tickets for Apple!, i.e., for an on-device feedback mechanism/app (with Windows, I’ve submitted so many items, time goes by, some darn thing bites me again and I forget that I complained about that something a year ago, etc.! - but MS has really been improving Windows). Think I will suggest the same for ReSound - does any HA OEM have the equivalent of a UserVoice-like site? They should! MS actually uses UserVoice for a number of their apps as well as offering in-app feedback mechanisms, too.
I’ve found calling direct is best. or the support site. https://support.apple.com/
Scroll down to Get Support and go from there. They can never direct me to a canned reply (evil grin) so I get the option to online chat or have them call me after I enter more info.
Calls always seem to be best, and they tell me a ticket number.
That MS system would be great, but even Google cannot offer that kind of support, sadly. I’ve found Resound support so bad that I do not even try anymore. Most product support is horrendous these days. Persistent Google searches find the best results, then I take that to the support people via chat or phone call for resolution.
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Thanks, I found the Apple Support site and chatted. I just reported the lack of the screenshot key combination working and @narenkona’s observation as my duplicated finding that just as narenkona described the Smart 3D complication is available for older faces like Simple and Utility but not newer like Infograph and Meridian.
At the end of the chat, I got a PDF transcript download and the chat support assured me if other folks have reported the same issues, they’ll work on an update. It’s too bad it’s such a siloed support approach and you don’t get a feel of how much other folks are experienced the same issue. And it’s too bad there’s not a suggestion box aspect, too. Sometimes one gets inspired about adding or changing features from reading about other folks’ problem reports or other folks’ suggestions. But I guess it could degenerate as at the MSFS 2020 community site where there is a wishlist vote and trollish folks badger the developers constantly about why nothing has been done yet about the most upvoted requests/problems. I hope all our reports do some good and I’ll echo narenkona’s complication findings to ReSound app support, too.
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I hope the additional support requests to Apple and Resound help. The fact that the Resound complication can not be added to newer watch faces has bothered me for over two years and I have made numerous support requests and you can see how effective that has been. Sorry to be so cynical. I get nice replies, “We will look into it.” Pffft.
Having been in tech support for yours when problems REALLY got solved, nowadays I realize quickly that most support people one contacts just have a rote script to follow and do not know or understand what you are trying to express. I’ve been deeply searching Google for answers before I ever call.
Almost without fail, the best resources are online forums like this one to learn and find answers. Sadly there are not too many high quality online forums as good as Hearing Tracker thanks to @AbramBaileyAuD and other admins plus the knowledgeable, kind and supportive users here! 
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I’ve just ordered an Apple Watch and plan to link my ComPilot Air to it.
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@Zebras Here’s Apple’s advice on Watch/iPhone compatibility just in case you haven’t seen it yet and are like me, ordering it through a third-party. Hope you like yours as much as I like mine, always the (overly) enthusiastic newbie, I am. 
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I just remembered, I added a complication to the Infograph face you show above for hearing devices. Go into the Watch app, then Accessibility and at the bottom add Accessibility Shortcut as Hearing Devices. Then back to where you edit the Infograph watch face, add Hearing Devices as a complication. Mine shows the volume (R + L) of my Resound aids. Tapping it lets me adjust the microphone level and the program, though each aid is listed separately so it has be done twice. The Resound app complication would be much better.
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Thanks for the suggestion, Tim. I tried the Hearing Devices complication but as you said, found it was limited compared to the Smart 3D app. It does show a pretty good digital approximation of the charge level of my Quattro Li-ion batteries, though, something the Smart 3D watch app does not, surprisingly. The watch version of Battery Life, under the right circumstances, can also show me that as well.
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Yes, that could be my main watch face for the same reasons you state - most useful complications. I have it next to the old Modular that gives most of what I want through the day, and a plain Numeral for when I am somewhere that someone gets too interested in what I have on my watch, like a neighbors grandson.
I just purchased an Apple Watch and it doesn’t seem to communicate with my Oticon OPN 1 hearing aids. I haven found anything specific to these HAs in the forum here. Anyone have any experience with this brand and the Apple Watch?
The Watch can’t connect directly to the Oticon aids. The watch has to control the aids through communication with iPhone or by way of the connect clip.
In other words the Apple Watch doesn’t have the MFI capability…
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Thank you. I am disappointed - this was a reason I bought the watch! 
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