I can confirm that using defineComponent works instead. See, Preview NS. I'm not sure why the variant of SFC is not working 🤔

Not destructuring the props actually works;

import { watch } from 'nativescript-vue';

const props = defineProps({
  text: String,
});

watch(
  () => props.text,
  () => {
    console.log("This watch should activate but it doesn't", props.text);
  }
);

@heywhy I have noticed this in some components, I have some others that do not work like this either, I do not understand why in some it does and in others it does not

In Vue 3 docs says:

Note that if you destructure the props object, the destructured variables will lose reactivity. It is therefore recommended to always access props in the form of props.xxx.

You can use toRefs if really need to destructure:

If you really need to destructure the props, or need to pass a prop into an external function while retaining reactivity, you can do so with the toRefs() and toRef() utility APIs:

const props = defineProps({
  text: String,
});

const { text } = toRefs(props)

watch(
  () =>text,
  () => {
    console.log("This watch should activate, text);
  }
);

I'm also facing this same issue. watch is not being called even though props are getting changed and the latest value is being displayed in the UI but not calling watch.

@meghraj-suthar can you show your code?

It seems like the problem is decomposing the props, but it's not an NS-Vue problem, it seems to be vue's behavior. Check this comment #1024 (comment)

Maybe this can help.
Don't mutate your objects, reassign them.