How to avoid polling server in React Native for new data?

Question

Is there any way to avoid polling the server in React Native every so often to check for updates on data?? I am using python in AWS Lightsail on the back end, and ideally would like the front end to be notified when certain data updates on the back end, and re-render only upon this occurrence. I am currently ignorant of how this might be done, but it seems like this would be a very common thing and I am just looking in the wrong places of how to do this. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Websockets: If you only want the app to update when its running, your client/ app could open a websocket to your backend, and have the backend send updates whenever it needs to. Your application needs to decide when to send these messages to clients, but will already have a connection established (the websocket). I found this SO answer interesting.

Push notifications: Alternatively, you could have something that triggers when you want clients to be updated (a serverless function which triggers on data change in your database?). The function would send a notification via FCM (firebase cloud messaging for Android devices) or APNs (Apple push notification service for iOS), and your client could have a handler for this notification.