I like that this is optional. Since 'ping' requests were intended to increase the accuracy of the visit length, an exponentially increasing interval conversely reduces the accuracy.

Instead of a multiplier and maximum delay, one of the things I had originally thought about was allowing the delay to be a callback function which returned the delay.

Allowing a callback is something I thought about too, however I thought I had a couple of hours to finish the addition, so I threw it out :)

We could easily recognize the multiplier parameter as a function and if so treat it as a callback. Keeping a maximum timeout still seems like a good idea to me, we can't be sure the code used will always be correct, and if users want they can set a ridiculously high value if they want.

One potential issue is that neither of these options is particularly user friendly, especially to non-coders. I think in this case it's ok, because the potential users of this specific feature shouldn't be the normal user. Someone operating a video streaming service or a web app should have access to programmers (if they aren't programmers themselves), so they could manage and fine tune the feature. Other users that don't have a complicated website w/ high traffic, and only want to reduce load for, say, shared hosting, don't necessarily have to use the heart beat feature.

So maybe instead of having 3 options (or with callback 4) we could have one bool option $increasePingIntervalOverTime

1. If disabled, which would be default, we ping every 15 seconds
2. If enabled, we increase over time (maybe not exponentially and not too fast increase the interval)

One other option $callback that let's a user customize it.

I like API's that are simple to use and look simple in code (I mean simple to implement) but still gives you the power to adjust to the needs if one wants to which would be given with the callback. Otherwise we end up having 4 or 5 or 6 options at some point which nobody understands and is buggy.

Thanks for the PR, we will not merge it as is for now. I'm closing and we will discuss & later take a decision in #8049

new try with some more explanation why something like this is really needed #9423