Set ping interval to 15 seconds instead of 5 minutes

[nohn]

Proposed change

When moving ping integration from yaml to GUI instead of a configurable interval, a fixed interval of 5 minutes is used. An interval that long does not make much sense in a home automation context. This PR changes that interval to a way more sane 15 seconds.

Type of change

• Dependency upgrade
• Bugfix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• New integration (thank you!)
• New feature (which adds functionality to an existing integration)
• Deprecation (breaking change to happen in the future)
• Breaking change (fix/feature causing existing functionality to break)
• Code quality improvements to existing code or addition of tests

Additional information

• This PR fixes or closes issue: fixes Ping Integration - Default Interval Too Long? #105163
• This PR is related to issue:
• Link to documentation pull request: Set default ping interval to 15 seconds instead 5 minutes home-assistant.io#30192

Checklist

• The code change is tested and works locally.
• Local tests pass. Your PR cannot be merged unless tests pass
• There is no commented out code in this PR.
• I have followed the development checklist
• I have followed the perfect PR recommendations
• The code has been formatted using Ruff (ruff format homeassistant tests)
• Tests have been added to verify that the new code works.

If user exposed functionality or configuration variables are added/changed:

• Documentation added/updated for www.home-assistant.io (see https://github.com/nohn/home-assistant.io/tree/sane_ping_interval)

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[home-assistant]

Hey there @jpbede, mind taking a look at this pull request as it has been labeled with an integration (ping) you are listed as a code owner for? Thanks!

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[jpbede]

Thanks, I would have done that in a few seconds also 👍 It was the default refresh interval of the binary sensor platform I used here

[jpbede]

Please update the documentation aswell

[nohn]

Please update the documentation aswell

I've already prepared that in https://github.com/nohn/home-assistant.io/tree/sane_ping_interval. Should I open a PR for that as well?

[jpbede]

Yes please

[jpbede]

Thanks 👍

[Mariusthvdb]

when we still had the scan_interval, we were told not to set this too high, as it might cause a lot of network traffic, and the reliability of this tracker on mobile phones is a bit questionable, as those tend to not use the network all the time in order to save battery.
scan_interval of 1 minutes was advised.

setting it to 15 secs by default now is rather high from that perspective, and now forces users that dont need that to disable polling and manually update by means of the automated homeassistant.update_entity service.

fully aware this is hard to please everyone, but flooding the network with those pings (especially when having more than a few devices pinged) cant be the final choice of the team?

the 15 secs timing seems a less than default requirement, and users needing that could easily set it in an automation.

re-adding the consider_home option might be better choice for everyone, as that truly blows to finetune this tracker.

[frenck]

@Mariusthvdb It was discussed and revised in: #105199

[Mariusthvdb]

o sorry, I missed that, thanks.
tbh, I wonder if that interval is still not too high, (couldnt other traffic cause these pings to not even be finished before the next already is issued?) but I guess we will see.

anyways, thanks for the ping and re-adjusting.

[nohn]

o sorry, I missed that, thanks. tbh, I wonder if that interval is still not too high, (couldnt other traffic cause these pings to not even be finished before the next already is issued?) but I guess we will see.

anyways, thanks for the ping and re-adjusting.

The solution would be bringing all config options that existed in YAML back to the GUI.

[frenck]

The solution would be bringing all config options that existed in YAML back to the GUI.

Sorry, that won't be happening. We don't allow scan interval configuration in the UI.

../Frenck

[nohn]

Sorry, that won't be happening. We don't allow scan interval configuration in the UI.

../Frenck

What is the reason for that? Specifically for the ping sensor there are so many different scenarios where different intervals totally make sense and using automations for that is crude, to put it mildly.

[frenck]

Let's keep that out of scope for this PR, as it has nothing to do with the contents of the code reviewed here. If you want to learn and discuss these things, our Discord server and community forums are the right places.

../Frenck

[haforme]

It appears that the HA development team is concerned that low ping times can affect the performance of HA, the network and the device its pinging and has settled on a 15 second interval in #105191. Maybe a solution would be to allow the users to configure the scan_interval but not set it lower than 15 seconds.

[frenck]

Maybe a solution would be to allow the users to configure the scan_interval but not set it lower than 15 seconds.

As per above, we don't allow that in our architecture.

Please also see: #105199