Show GPS timestamps in the local timezone instead of the profile timezone

[radh21301]

Hey,

I noticed something with the timeline and the GPS data page. All the timestamps are shown in the timezone set in the user profile. Let’s say my profile timezone is set to Chicago. If I take a trip and log points in New York or London, the times still show up as Chicago time.

This gets pretty confusing. A point recorded in London at like 2 pm local time suddenly shows up as 8 am because it’s forced into Chicago time. Same thing with New York. Makes it kinda hard to follow the trip or timeline in a way that matches what actually happened.

It would be much clearer if each GPS point showed the local time at the place it was recorded. And then the backend could still use UTC for sorting and anything internal?

Not sure of the best way to address this. Just wanted to share this since it threw me off a bit.

[tess1o]

Hello,

Yes, I know about this issue and honesty don't know how to properly solve it. On one hand we can try to update location's timezone or exact time when we insert data to DB but where to get the values? Also what to do with the data already in DB? How to do it quickly (I see one user has 5.5 million records)

So many questions :)

[radh21301]

Yeah timezones are always kinda confusing :) Just thinking out loud here…

Would it be possible to grab the timezone from the coords somehow and save it with the point? Or maybe even calculate it on the fly when loading the timeline? (No clue if that would be too slow)

I found a couple libraries that claim to do this stuff… not sure how good they are though:

• timezonefinder
• timeshape

Another thought… maybe also add a setting for how to display times? Maybe people prefer different things? Something like:

• Default (use the timezone set in the user profile page )
• Browser timezone (whatever timezone the person’s device is in). Might help when sharing trips with families in different locations. Browser time is essentially the timezone of that family member. So might be clear and useful.
• Geo local (timezone based on where that GPS point actually was)