I already tried all that including clearing data from the weather widget and wiping the Gear 2 again. It updates only if I wake the phone or touch the refresh icon. If it sits idle the weather will only show the data from the last update and never do it on its own. This never happened on stock.
Removing Google apps didn't kill it did it? I don't like the issues and drain caused by Google apps so I really don't want them back. I am really liking it pure Samsung. But perhaps location data depends on Maps or something? It's almost as if my phone stops background data when sleeping or going so far into deep sleep it ceases to function. My battery life is superb.
It's not the watch, I unpaired and powered it down and the widget on the home screen doesn't update unless I turn the phone on and unlock then you see it gathering data (GPS icon flashing and little loading symbol on widget. )
With the phone off, leaving it on a table set the weather to refresh hourly if I leave it saying 70 degrees and last update at 8 pm that's exactly what it shows when I check it again a day later, until it starts refreshing soon after. Whatever is going on isn't waking the device to scan every hour for updated weather.
All other watch functions work fine, so I continue to get notifications and calls work, s voice works, etc. But weather refuses to auto refresh. If it helps, sometimes the widget data is blank saying 'service not available' despite great 4G LTE