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
GPS or similar positioning system. GPS works by each satellite transmitting its precise orbital parameters and a UTC time, and by comparing the signals from multiple satellites your phone can determine its location on the planet. Because it knows where it is and a UTC time it can compare that against a locally stored map of the time zones to figure out what the proper local time is to display.
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