OK, I see, thank you. So how can I find out if it's safe to increase my minimum deployment target for the watchOS companion app without making the app useless for a part of my users? Since there is not an easy way to go back, I would rather not simply try it and mess around with my users. In any case: What is the recommended way to handle this?

Unfortunately there isn’t a way to serve an older version of the app to customers who cannot update their OS. What exactly does this mean? If I drop watchOS 10 (increase to 11) - will users with older Hardware (e.g. Apple Watch SE1) still receive the update on their iPhone (cause it runs iOS 18 or 26) and thus render the app useless as the companion app is no longer installable on their watch?

ok I see, I will try to make it more clear and create a new post below

I see, thank you! That would be a workaround, but I don't like it either for my use case...

Yeah you're right. It seems to work fine now!