Hello Christopher,
Thank you for your message.
I recommend that you use
Direct connection. It's the best option to use if your remote Hosts and the Viewer PC are on the same LAN or VPN. Here's a related
article on connecting over LAN.
If you want a direct connection to constantly show its status then go to
Connection properties - Authorization.
Select the
Check online status for direct connections checkbox:

You can read more about checking online status of your remote PC in
this article.
Please note that for
Internet-ID connections only their connection status is checked. You cannot ping remote computers via an Internet-ID connection because the remote Hosts are not in direct visibility for the Viewer.
Hope that helps.