For the OP’s purpose, how about another nod toward Monty Python: “NDY” standing for “Not dead yet”.
Imadog? for “I’m a dog” = barking…
'the sensor suite stopped barking a few ticks ago…
It can even be backronymed. Something like “your operational periodic packet.” There’s probably a better one.
Thinking about it a bit more, if it were me, I’d call it a squawk. (I have designed more than my fair share of distributed protocols, and this one sounds pretty much right.)
It sounds as if you will have a flock of them being tracked, and they will be squawking away as you track them.
I was holding out for Horton, but the majority vote was to go with ping.
In our system, the tags emit small data packets that are picked up by networked devices that forward the signal on to a server with our software on it. That software can be used to manage the configuration of all the networked devices (that we supply) and the tags and can be used to troubleshoot issues in addition to letting you know if a tag hasn’t checked in recently.
And darn it, @Francis_Vaughan, I think “squawk” would have been perfect. [mourns]
(I may float it as an idea, but I suspect we’ll stick to ping.)
OK, serious suggestion: ahoy
In the PLC world we used to call it a “Lost Comm. Watchdog”.
And you could refer to it as an “ET.”
telemetry, or telemetry signal seems like it would work
If you want to avoid medical terms, telemetry wouldn’t work.
Watchdog?
In our system if we don’t “kick” the watchdog timer in X seconds, the device will get rebooted.
I was going to suggest watchdog, as well - although that name is usually applied to the timer-based process that is monitoring for the incoming status packets.
Is it just informative, or is there a back-and-forth handshake required?
“Keepalive” or similar suggests to me a two-way handshake to maintain the circuit open (in phone or computer sense, not electrical “open circuit”).
So the two signals would be a notify and acknowledge , essentially.
Perhaps connection refresh is the better term for maintaining the connection, rather than notify which implies it may be a first time signal.
For a one-way signal (“I don’t care if I get a response”) a Ping or HAIL would be appropriate. (If the central server is the master, just still don’t call it a HEIL.)
Motorola used COPS for computer operating properly signal.
In the days of DOS based operator interface computers (ie, not very robust), we’d hardwire a relay to the PLC that could kill power to the PC. Worked 99.9% of the time.
Considering the message includes the battery status and location I’d just call it an update or status message.
What about Cooee?
From wikipedia:
Cooee! is a shout originated in Australia to attract attention, find missing people, or indicate one’s own location.
Yep, for SCADA systems we use “heartbeat tags”. There’s also “handshake”, but that’s two-way confirmation, not just listening to a broadcasting tag.
I think either the aforementioned ahoy, or yopp, are both good. Horton isn’t, as he’s the listener.
Technically true. But “Yopp” wasn’t instantly recognizable as a reference to “We’re here”, and “Horton” was.
A coworker cleared up my misunderstanding. All the heartbeat message does is say that the tag still exists. The system figures out where it is based on what devices hear it.
Several of my techie friends have started muttering something about trying to get Horton “into the lexicon”, which amuses me no end.
I really like the descriptive term “postcard” you’ve suggested!