Help: change binary_sensor ping to be on a toggle

Hey all,
so im trying to monitor the status of things on my network, to check if anything goes down (eg. the neato loses signal) using Platform:Ping… however if im working/gaming, i dont want to hammer my network.
is it possible to setup the binary sensor on an automation, so i can manually toggle it on/off from the UI?

a sample from my config.yaml which i want to change to be on an automation?

#https://www.home-assistant.io/components/ping/
  - platform: ping
    host: !secret Ipneato
    name: PingTest_Ipneato
    scan_interval: 300
    count: 2
  - platform: ping
    host: !secret IPNetgearLR
    name: PingTest_NetgearLR
    scan_interval: 300
    count: 2

Pinging every 5 minutes doesn’t seem to me to be “hammering” the network. But you could set the scan interval to like 30 days (so it effectively never runs by itself), and then use an automation (whose triggering you control) to call the homeassistant.update_entity service to update the sensors.

Hey,

i have like 40 items im checking up on, so i do notice it on my calls when this happens.

great idea on the update function.

My ideal state would be to have this run every 30min, however when i need to disable it, i could toggle a swtich? or is that not possible

Use an automation that is triggered every 30 min. Add a condition that an input_boolean needs to be on. When you want to disable it, turn off the input_boolean.