How To Do Polling with Angular 2 Observables

Make sure you have imported {Observable} from rxjs/Rx. If we don't import it we get observable not found error sometimes.

Working plnkr http://plnkr.co/edit/vMvnQW?p=preview

import {Component} from '@angular/core';
import {Http} from '@angular/http';
import 'rxjs/Rx';
import {Observable} from 'rxjs/Rx';

@Component({
    selector: 'app',
    template: `
      <b>Angular 2 HTTP polling every 5 sec RxJs Observables!</b>
      <ul>
        <li *ngFor="let doctor of doctors">{{doctor.name}}</li>
      </ul>

      `
})

export class MyApp {
  private doctors = [];
  pollingData: any;      

  constructor(http: Http) {
   this.pollingData = Observable.interval(5000)
    .switchMap(() => http.get('http://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users/')).map((data) => data.json())
        .subscribe((data) => {
          this.doctors=data; 
           console.log(data);// see console you get output every 5 sec
        });
  }

 ngOnDestroy() {
    this.pollingData.unsubscribe();
}
}

Try this

return Observable.interval(2000) 
        .switchMap(() => this.http.get(url).map(res:Response => res.json()));

I recommend the rx-polling library which abstracts a lot of the details provides mechanisms for retries, back-off strategies, and even pause/resume if browser tab becomes inactive.