I have an Android Wear app (a watchface) that was originally created before Wear 2.0, so it is embedded in a phone APK. I am working on porting it to 2.0, and keeping it backwards compatible. It is standalone and requires zero connection to a phone.
I understand that for Wear 2.0, the only thing needing to be published for a standalone app is the Wear APK. I have been reading through Google's documents and recommendations for moving 1.x apps to Multi-APK instead of embedded. They are a bit vague, however, on if a standalone Wear 1.x app even needs a companion app. I'm asking about this because it seems strange that we would need a dummy app on the phone that does literally nothing, if the Wear app is now its own APK.
From my understanding, that is the case, unfortunately. Since there is no Play Store app on Wear 1.0 watches, it's not possible to install the standalone app directly. So a user needs to install the companion app on the phone, and Play Services should install the Wear app if there is a Wear 1.0 watch connected.