Ion-slides 1.2.1 $watch not working

I'm having the same type of issue. Using Angular 1.X with Ionic 1.2 I can't get the $scope.$watch to work. Can't get the change function to work either ...

<ion-slides options="options" slider="slider" change="onSlideChanged($event)">


None of these functions are firing anything.

$scope.onSlideChanged = function(slider) {
console.log('Slide changed', slider);
console.log("active index", slider.activeIndex);
}

$scope.changed = function(slider) {
console.log('Slide changed', slider);
console.log("active index", slider.activeIndex);
}

$scope.$watch($scope.slider, function(slider, slider2){
console.log(slider);
console.log(slider2);
})