How does a smartphone know the local time when there’s no cellular service or mobile data/location turned on?

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When I googled earlier, all answers pointed towards the phone receiving cellular signals or depending on its internal digital clock but I’m asking this question because when we crossed my country’s border and briefly entered our neighbor’s territory, my phone’s time automatically changed to the neighboring country’s timezone even though there was absolutely zero cellular service and I didn’t have mobile data or location turned on (not that mobile data would have worked without cell service)

So, how did my phone know the other country’s time? I don’t really understand how the internal clock works either, but this is even more of a mystery to me. Would love to know how this really works!

In: Technology

9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Digital clocks were a thing long before gps and cellphones. My guess is that it is a simple algorithm that keeps the time.

But I was born nearly a decade before the first moon landing so I am proberly wrong.

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