Clock way off

[TMavC5]

I understand, but being off by 20-40 seconds it wouldn't really matter unless you doing some type of professional racing or any time of time keeping. I used my HERE Drive daily, and its keeping time estimate just fine. I'm just trying to understand why this is such a problems that's all. Or we just expects too much of our smartphones.

Time keeping (in the sense of replacing a watch) is really a secondary issue. Many connectivity features don't work properly if the clock is too far out of sync. Things like HERE Transit and the Store get upset if you don't have the correct time (though I think there's up to a couple of minutes tolerance). The other thing that's effected is two-step authentication on some types of accounts. If your phone's clock doesn't agree with the server clock you can have a problem logging in.

So while it may sound like a trivial issue, it can become a real pita if things get too far out of sync.

And for the record, I had some time sync issues with my Lumia 720 when I had switched off data for while. Even though it was connecting via wifi every so often, it would occasionally show the time out by a few minutes. Now I'm back on a data plan I haven't had an issue.

 

[jmshub]

I have noticed the same thing with my windows phones. I do find it odd that the phones don't sync to standard time.
Sent from my Lumia 920 using Board Express

 

[nikhilr51]

Or we just expects too much of our smartphones.

Not at all. I expect it to be a clock. Is that too much to ask?

I do find it odd that the phones don't sync to standard time.

Mine is fine, it's not a global issue or a problem with the phone.

 

[OzRob]

Mine is fine, it's not a global issue or a problem with the phone.

I suspect it is a global issue. Have you ever put your phone into flight mode for a few days, or been out unable to connect via 3G or wifi for a period of time? When I'm in this situation I notice I can get wacky time differences occurring on my Lumia 720.

 

[OzRob]

I'm just trying to understand why this is such a problems that's all. Or we just expects too much of our smartphones.

It's a problem because having accurate time on your phone is important to some people and some applications. It may not be important to you, but it is to others. And no, I don't think we are expecting too much of a smartphone to be able to keep accurate time. My old iPhone did it. My Android phone does it. My Windows 8 tablet does it. My $16 watch does it. Even my microwave does it. My Windows Phone doesn't appear to do it.

 

[clintoncrick]

I've noticed this issue on my HTC 8X as well.

While I haven't taken the time to get the exact number of seconds off, 40 sounds about it, as the majority of the time my phone is a minute slow compared to my desktop and coworkers' phones. Don't believe this is a carrier specific issue, as my previous Android device on the same carrier (Verizon) did not have this issue. I have not taken the steps of a soft reset, but I'll try that to see if I can correct it.

But yes, I can confirm that this is an issue, it is a PITA, and it's surprising that a modern operating system struggles with keeping synced time.

 

[Rem97]

You really need to get out more bro

hahaaa

 

[commo]

The time on my Lumia 928 is off as well. It's really important that the time be correct for me. I use an RSA Token to VPN into my network and it requres that the time be correct. I have both an iPhone and Lumia 928 both on Verizon and when set to auto time, the Lumia is always off. When I tried to VPN in using my RSA software token, it locked my account out because it kept tyring to authenticate with the incorrect token. So yes, time in seconds does matter depending on what application your using. I have set my Lumia 928 to manual for now and it seems to be in sync for now. This issue really needs to be addressed if they want corporations to reliably use this feature.

 

[Rob Bohn]

I've got to chime in as well that it is a royal PITA.

Speaking of racing, I was a stage captain at a recent rally, and wanted a fallback watch/clock in case my good timing equipment failed - I was surprised to see my phone was off by 40 seconds like the other posters said. I compared it with a WWV radio and with NIST's time.gov website (accurate to 0.1s when I ran it).

Not good! 40 seconds IS a LOT. I would have thought we were syncing to the cell tower's time, or maybe the GPS time, or at the least an NTP source like Windows.

 

[gsquared]

Heh, you went dumpster diving deep today Rob,

See my first post on this subject so many months ago.

 

[commo]

Noticed that after the Black update, my time is only off by about 3-4 seconds now. Not perfect but I'll take it.

 

[Kevin Corcino]

I've noticed this for some time now (I've been on WP since 2/2011) and 40 seconds seemed about right. Last night I set my alarm for my girlfriend because her alarm on her iphone was acting funny the morning before (it snoozed without her doing anything). Since I knew my phone was a little behind hers I set mine to 6:29 so it would go off before hers set to 6:30 and we could see what her alarm was doing. Guess what happened... They went off at EXACTLY the same time! I just checked timeanddate.com and time.gov and it is 1 minute and 5 seconds behind those sites. We are both on AT&T so it probably isn't a carrier issue. I haven't tried setting the clock manually because I shouldn't have to. I have a Lumia 1020 with the Black update that I got on March 15, 2014. What gives?!

*Update: I set the clock manually and it was way ahead. So I tried again with the same result. So I set it back to auto and turned the phone off for a few minutes. When I turned it back on it was still way ahead so I manually set it again and checked it against time.gov. It is now 17 seconds ahead. I set it back to auto so I wonder how long it will stay. Oh and for the record my Win7 laptop is 5 seconds ahead.

 

[herbertsnow]

Time is a flat circle, so don't worry about it.

 

[gomezz]

I rely on accurate time in my job which is why I used a radio controlled watch for the job synched to an atomic clock. I would not trust my phone if I needed to catch a train.

 

[Pete]

Windows phone uses the NITZ protocol when it is supported by the service provider

NITZ - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This give you the correct local date and time (where an internet time server would not, and WP8 apparently doesn't have OS functionality that can convert internet time to local time)