Poll HTTP endpoint in Meteor - meteor

Question

I am trying to get some info from an API and save this info into a mongodb collection and finally display this information reactively. When the page is loaded it does it perfectly. If I make a manual update in mongo the view changes instantly as well. But after the first load, the page doesn't make new requests anymore, so the external data is no longer refreshed.
I understand that meteor looks for internal data changes, but I didn't find anything to look for external changes, or to make the requests in a loop.
<template name="scanner">
{{#each scan}}
<img src="img/antenna.png" height="25" width="25" style={{position_scanner x y}}
id="{{addr}}" title="{{tip_text addr name}}" >
{{/each}}
</template>
Template.scanner.helpers({
scan: function() {
Meteor.call("get_scanners");
return Scanners.find({});
}
});
Meteor.methods({
get_scanners: function (){
var url = "http://192.168.60.154:5008/api-ot/scanners";
try {
var result = HTTP.get(url);
var statusCode = result.statusCode;
var data = result.data.scanners_list;
for (var x in data) {
var scanner = data[x];
Scanners.update({ addr: scanner.addr }, scanner, { upsert: true });
}
} catch (e) {
console.log("Cannot get scanner data");
}
}
});

Answer 1

Since you want your external call to happen every 10 seconds, you can just do it in Meteor.startup() using Meteor.setInterval() to schedule it. You are updating the Scanners collection which can be sent to the client via publish & subscribe, no Meteor.call() necessary!
Meteor.startup(() => {
Meteor.setInterval(() => {
const = "http://192.168.60.154:5008/api-ot/scanners";
try {
const data = HTTP.get(url).data.scanners_list;
data.forEach(scanner => {
Scanners.update({ addr: scanner.addr }, scanner, { upsert: true });
});
} catch (e) {
console.log("Cannot get scanner data");
}
},10000); // run every 10 seconds == 10000 msec
});