Is calling requestAnimationFrame recommended?

Ionic Framework ionic-v3
1

I stumbled upon code examples where ionic components wrap around pure javascript libraries that need their valuies updated. This is performed using requestAnimationFrame, e.g. like this:

    let startRequest = this._last == null;
    this._last = { value: value, unit: unit };

    if (startRequest) {
      requestAnimationFrame(() => {
        let last = this._last;
        this._last = null;
        this.update(last.value, last.unit);
      });
    }

Besides the performance issue described here I wonder whether this is the recommended way to go or if there are other machnisms to use here.

Please comment.