Android Jetpack: lifecycle-aware recurrent periodic task execution with LiveData and ViewModels

Question

My app already uses some recent Android patterns for network calls:

• LiveData class
• MVVM architecture with ViewModel class
• Kotlin coroutines for Repository classes
• Retrofit interface etc.

Now I want to implement common feature which is automatic fetching current data from API every few minutes .

I read about WorkManager and give it a shot - I implemented it but I then saw that WorkManager ( JobScheduler ) keeps running after closing app which is not what I want. I also felt like WorkManager API is too much overkill for that simple task.

Then I read a guide on Codepath that suggests Handler class for main thread repetitive jobs and ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor for background repetitive tasks. I know that they will probably work fine but I'm not sure if they are best solution.

My question is: what's currently the best way for recurrent API calls that:

• works with LiveData and ViewModel classes (observable result like normal API call)
• is Kotlin-friendly (any way to make coroutine recurrent?)
• is "lifecycle-aware", meaning that it will stop when app goes to the background?

Answer 1

WorkManager is for guaranteed works that needs to be executed even if your app exit or the device is restarted. From your description this doesn't seem your use case.

A threadpool seems the best option in this case, but you can judge yourself starting from this guide: " Background Tasks ".