This feature is gradually rolling out to all users as the new, definitive plugin refresh strategy.
On-demand refresh ("just-in-time") is a new plugin sync strategy that ensures your TRMNL always displays the latest information. It also simplifies how refresh rates work.
How it Works
The concept is simple. Plugins are automatically refreshed right before they are shown on the TRMNL.
That's it. That's the whole shebang. The plugin refresh rate setting is gone, since it's no longer needed. The cadence of data sync is determined entirely by the device.
The upshot of this approach is that your TRMNL always displays the latest information, not from 15 minutes or 4 hours ago.
Compared To Before
Previously, there were two separate "refresh rate" concepts: plugin refresh, and device refresh.
The plugin refresh would determine how often data was synced. That would happen in the background on a fixed interval (for the nerds: a cron job), generating screens ahead of time to be fetched later by the TRMNL.
The device refresh – which still exists – tells the TRMNL hardware how often to advance to the next screen in its playlist.
The interaction between these two refresh intervals guaranteed one thing: you would always see information that's a little out-of-date. And it could be difficult to choose a plugin refresh interval that minimizes this effect without syncing too often.
Now the device refresh is the only thing that matters, because plugins are automatically synced at the moment they will be seen.
Limitations
Each plugin has a minimum refresh interval which will not be exceeded, even if device refreshes frequently. We want to be good netizens, which means preventing TRMNL from polling third-party APIs too often. For most plugins, the minimum refresh interval is 15 minutes. For TRMNL+ subscribers, this is improved to 5 minutes.
On-demand refresh works best when the TRMNL naturally advances to the next screen. If you use the button or touch bar to navigate through the playlist out of order, those screens may not have the latest content.
A Note to Plugin Authors
If your plugin fetches data from an API, this change may have an impact on the frequency and cadence of API requests. Our metrics indicate that this should not result in a significant change to the number of overall requests, but the usage patterns may vary more widely between plugin installs.
Do I Have it Yet?
If the plugin refresh rate setting looks like this, congrats! You have on-demand refresh enabled for your account.
