The short version: I’d like an interval setting for the force_update option of rest sensors, so that this option is not constantly on, but only on once every x amount of time.
The longer version, which is an example usecase:
Thanks to an issue with Shelly-firmware, the power consumption value is now only rarely send to Home Assistant. This is a problem that seems to have been around for a while, but only recently started here:
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/shelly-plus-1-pm-power-refresh-interval
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/shelly-plus-1pm-not-updating-properly-since-firmware-1-4-2/
To get around the problem, someone created a rest-sensor to poll the power value, this so that one can actually set an update interval, something which not all Shelly products have an option for.
When the value is unchanged, this does not cause an update of the last sensor value unless force_update is set. But that results in as many values as scan_interval has been set to.
Now when the power consumption changes regularly, I’d personally like as much data as possible (to pick up spikes in power consumption for example), so a low scan_interval, But if the power consumption remains constant, not many updates are required, but I’d do like the occasional update, like every half a minute or so.
Hence the request for an interval for force_update, so that when there’s an unchanged value, an occasional update is still done so that I don’t keep thinking that a sensor is broken, if it hasn’t received an update in a while.