Pulsating light - Best approach?

[edsger]

I want to create a pulsating light, but I'm not sure what the best approach is.

I have a hue ambiance light (can only set white light values and color temperature) that I want to use as status indicator.
Pulsating warm light = status OK
Pulsating cold light = Alert.
Light pulsating should be maximum 1 minute. After that it should go either out or simply on.

I have created a global helper function that should pulsate the light.
How do I do that?
Simply creating a for-loop that sets light values spams way to much commands, way too fast.
Using timer events is not an option as it only works per second (pulsating is way too slow).
Also I want a way to check if the Alert status has changed so I can change from warm to cold or vice versa if the status has changed.

Any ideas?