"Enable Polling for Updates" option is not mentioned in docs nor is it self-explanatory

[dduff617]

Feedback

In the "three dots" menu you can see when looking at the Insteon integration, there is a menu item called "system options" and within that dialog, there is an option called "Enable polling for updates" which I believe is ON by default. The description states "If Home Assistant should automatically poll Insteon entities for updates." Other than this description, there is no other mention of polling anywhere, and nothing whatsoever in the docs.

To my understanding, when proper controller links are configured, Insteon devices are mostly supposed to actively report changes in status when they are invoked by outside events (user activating a switch, sensor reporting a change, etc.). So in at least in theory, it seems polling should not be necessary.
Question: Why is it turned on by default?
Question: How is polling invoked? Is it done periodically? Is it invoked when certain Insteon message traffic is detected? Is it done for example when battery-powered devices are detected as being "awake"? Or is this possibly something that only happens when the integration starts up?
Question: What devices and what states are polled?
Question: What are the possible benefits of polling - i.e., why would I turn this on?
Question: What are the costs of polling? - i .e. why might I want to turn this off?
Question: Assuming polling is something that takes a non-trivial amount of time... Is there any way to tell when polling is happening? What are the consequences or effects when it is running - i.e. does it interfere with normal Insteon operation in my system?

Depending on what it does and when, any kind of comprehensive polling of devices in my network would both take a very long time and generate a lot of traffic on the Insteon mesh, so seems (based on my understanding) mostly to not be advantageous, but I suspect I'm missing some nuances here.

Other than the somewhat-hidden global option of turning the setting on or off... if in fact polling is sometimes a useful thing to do, should it be added to the list of other insteon-related services like "load all link database", etc so that it can be invoked manually when needed?

Again, if polling is a useful thing to do, would it not be useful to add it as something that could be done for a particular device (i.e. either from the normal device view in HASS or from the "configuration" view)? Perhaps this might amount to something similar to "re-interview" supported for devices in some other integrations?

URL

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/insteon/

Version

2024.5.2

Additional information

by way of background... i'm fairly new to HASS, migrating from another control system (Indigo). i have a medium-large system including a lot of insteon devices. i'm seeing extreme slowness in some operations related to operating and managing insteon stuff in HASS and trying to do what i can to clean up and organize my system using HASS.

[home-assistant]

Hey there @teharris1, mind taking a look at this feedback as it has been labeled with an integration (insteon) you are listed as a code owner for? Thanks!

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