Issue: Series 6 watch stores playlist but can't playback without phone.

My Series 6 watch used to store a playlist (about 100 songs) and allow me to go for a run and playback the playlist to my Airpods - without the iPhone nearby. This functionality stopped this week after updating iPhone 15 to 18.2 and watch to 11.2(22S101).

I was just told in a chat session that this is accurate and I can no longer playback songs downloaded to my watch unless I also have the phone nearby (in other words, run with my phone, which is not something I ever did, nor want to do.)

Is this true? Has Apple stopped this playback function of the watch?