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

Ping returns different exit codes depending on the type of error.

ping 256.256.256.256 ; echo $?
# 68

ping -c 1 127.0.0.1 ; echo $?
# 0

ping -c 1 192.168.1.5 ; echo $?
# 2

0 means host reachable

2 means unreachable

Answer 2

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