Using Eloquent Events/Observers, is it possible to detect which properties were updated within an Update event? Or, can you gain access to the previous/new values to do a comparison?
I'm finding the only solution is to manually fire events by detecting the specific field exists in the validated request data, in the controller.
Yes, absolutely. You can use the Model class's existing methods to gain access to various sets of data. The following methods should be helpful for what you want to do.
getChanges()
Get the attributes that were changed. (and saved)
$model->getChanges()
getOriginal()
Get the model's original attribute values.
$model->getOriginal()
getDirty()
Get the attributes that have been changed since last sync. (but not saved yet)
$model->getDirty()