Checking host availability by using ping in bash scripts

Question

I want to write a script, that would keep checking if any of the devices in network, that should be online all day long, are really online. I tried to use ping, but

Answer 1

up=`fping -r 1 $1 `
if [ -z "${up}" ]; then
    printf "Host $1 not responding to ping   \n"
    else
    printf "Host $1 responding to ping  \n"
fi