Is the New Haptic API Useless?

I was looking forward to watchOS 2 giving us access to haptic feedback. I thought I could use it to get the user's attention but the sense I get is even though I can call playHaptic from my WatchKit extension running on the watch, my code won't run when my watch app is not active. I would think that haptic feedback would be most useful when the user's wrist is NOT raised. However, my app is not active then. So my code that calls playHaptic won't ever run, at least not until the user raises their wrist and looks at my app. That begs the question, why use haptic feedback when the user is already looking at my watch app. I could just as easily display something in the UI to get the user's attention. I would love to be able to use WatchConnectivity, call sendMessage, and have my watch app call playHaptic to get the user's attention, but sendMessage won't wakeup a watch app that is not active. I "worked around" this with watchOS 1 by presenting a local notification but that's slow, the UI is clunky with the Dismiss button and the whole process is unreliable as it's never clearly when/whether iOS will send notifications across to the watch. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. I was hoping to streamline the whole process and make my watch app more responsive by sending a message from my phone app to my watch app and have my watch app call playHaptic to give haptic feedback to get the user look at my watch app. So am I missing something or is the new haptic API useless?