Eventor and Time

[Costas]

@Cejfi

What time zones do you use for your blynk-cloud servers all around the world?

I believe they will all be UTC.

[Gunner]

@Cejfi

If this is so, then I have to check why it started working when i set the correct time (my citiy time) on the phone.

You are not using the “phone time” when you set it in the Eventor, you are telling the server what time and zone to process the action, so if you live in the same timezone as the server, set for the same timezone, but if you travel many timezones away, and want the action to happen based on your physical location, then set accordingly for your location…

[Cejfi]

@Gunner

@Cejfi

If this is so, then I have to check why it started working when i set the correct time (my citiy time) on the phone.

You are not using the “phone time” when you set it in the Eventor, you are telling the server what time and zone to process the action, so if you live in the same timezone as the server, set for the same timezone, but if you travel many timezones away, and want the action to happen based on your physical location, then set accordingly for your location…

My experience was different, it was also very late, I might have missed something. I’ll try again, and report back.

[Gunner]

In my testing, I found I needed to give about 5+ mins lead time between setting and waiting for activation, anything less and my timer seemed to get missed… but once properly set, it was right on time, every time.

[Cejfi]

@Gunner

In my testing, I found I needed to give about 5+ mins lead time between setting and waiting for activation, anything less and my timer seemed to get missed… but once properly set, it was right on time, every time.

I mostly gave 2 min when testing. That might be the reason. Wondering how you got the idea to give 5 min…

[Gunner]

@Cejfi

Wondering how you got the idea to give 5 min…

I went through a similar test a few months ago when assisting another user…

[SOLVED] Timer Widget not doing any action at set time (via direct pin manipulation)

Strange… while testing for this OP yesterday, I had set a timer to turn on a digital pin for an LED, for one minute, and could never get it to work despite many attempts. So I just posted the above comments and left it. Then just a few minutes ago, I walked by and noticed the LED was on for a few seconds then it turned off… turns out I hadn’t removed the timer widget and 24 hours later it turned on the LED for one minute as it was set for, and I had just caught the tail end of it working. How…

That’s how I determined the (at the time undocumented) Server time connection… I also tried “saving time” and originally tested at 1-2 minutes… it didn’t work.

[Cejfi]

Well probably when i changed the time on the emulator I gave the eventor more than 2 minutes and then it worked, so I got the feeling that changing the time of my phone had some effect on it, but it was only coincidence.

Still didn’t got time to try it out but I’ll soon report back.

[Cejfi]

Pain to test…

[Cejfi]

I tried it now multiple times with my timezone on my phone wrongly set, its not working. Took me 40 minutes to test as I gave 10 min between measurements as you said. If I set the correct Time Zone on my phone it works.

Can you try set your time zone manually to a wrong time zone, and report back?

P.S. It is interesting that the default time zone in the eventor timer is set to the time zone set in the phone, maybe the time zone settings in the eventor timer is not sending the changed time zone, it just sends the default time zone whether you change it or not…

Kind Regards

[Gunner]

@Cejfi

I tried it now multiple times with my timezone on my phone wrongly set, its not working. Took me 40 minutes to test as I gave 10 min between measurements as you said. If I set the correct Time Zone on my phone it works.

Reread you own statement Of course it won’t work if you set the wrong timezone (well, actually it will work, but you need to wait until your local equivalent of that timezone happens).

@Cejfi

Can you try set your time zone manually to a wrong time zone, and report back?

I did (because once I forgot to take local daylight savings into effect; I set for -7 and not -8, or was it the inverse?), and of course, it didn’t work when I expected it to… but if I had waited another hour (or perhaps 23), it would have worked.

[Cejfi]

@Gunner

@Cejfi

I tried it now multiple times with my timezone on my phone wrongly set, its not working. Took me 40 minutes to test as I gave 10 min between measurements as you said. If I set the correct Time Zone on my phone it works.

Reread you own statement Of course it won’t work if you set the wrong timezone (well, actually it will work, but you need to wait until your local equivalent of that timezone happens).

@Cejfi

Can you try set your time zone manually to a wrong time zone, and report back?

I did (because once I forgot to take local daylight savings into effect; I set for -7 and not -8, or was it the inverse?), and of course, it didn’t work when I expected it to… but if I had waited another hour (or perhaps 23), it would have worked.

If it takes the timezone from the phone, what is the point of the timezone from the eventor time settings?

[Gunner]

@Cejfi

f it takes the timezone from the phone, what is the point of the timezone from the eventor time settings?

I have explained that a post or two above… it is NOT taking your Phone’s clock info, it is taking the time and timezone specifics that you set it for. When at home, set for home, when abroad set for abroad… assuming you want the notification/action to work on “local”, aka whatever timezone you are in. i.e. using Blynk as an alarm clock.

[Cejfi]

@Gunner

@Cejfi

f it takes the timezone from the phone, what is the point of the timezone from the eventor time settings?

I have explained that a post or two above… it is NOT taking your Phone’s clock info, it is taking the time and timezone specifics that you set it for. When at home, set for home, when abroad set for abroad… assuming you want the notification/action to work on “local”, aka whatever timezone you are in. i.e. using Blynk as an alarm clock.

Ok, I understood what you said before but what I say is, it is taking the time zone of your phone, try to change it (clock phone info) and you will see its not working.

Regards

[Dmitriy]

@Cejfi

Ok, I understood what you said before but what I say is, it is taking the time zone of your phone, try to change it (clock phone info) and you will see its not working.

Please explain step by step what you did (eventor settings). And what do you expect from your setup.

[Cejfi]

@Cejfi

Hello!

I am using a local server and I can’t really understand how Time is Working in Eventor. My logic was that the time pin (or however you call it, as its just listed there with other pins) uses the time from the local server but this was not the case. Then I thought the local server thinks that it is in the New York time zone as the blink-cloud server is probably in New York, but this would be stupid… Well I was thinking about all this because the eventor didn’t trigger the event at the given time. Last thing I tried is to change the time of my android phone, I use an emulator and didn’t pay attention to the time there (it was not same as my location time) but it seems it is very important. Eventor Time function uses the time from the phone and not the time from the server, also changing the time zone in the eventor time fuction doesn’t have any effects.

Why would the developer take the phone time for this and not the server time, and what is the usage of specifying the Time Zone in the Eventor Time event?

–
Cejfi

1. Change time zone in Android to something else than your local time zone (I took Vladivostok) and use 24h format.
   

   

2. Add Eventor and Notification to Project
   

   

3. Add new event in Eventor and select Time
   

   

4. Look at your PC time, hand watch, your grandmothers watch (one that works ofc.) and add +10 min in front. Set the time zone in eventor to your PC time zone, I am located in Austria so I took Vienna. Keep all days of week selected. Press “Set the time”
   

   

5. Add Notification as triggering event
   

   

I expect the msg “It is Working!” to appear in the next 10 minutes, this is not the case because the time zone in Android is wrong, this means Eventor takes time zone from Android (image 1) as the input and not the time zone from Eventor (image 4).

[Dmitriy]

@Cejfi thanks. Does the eventor work as expected without changing TZ on phone?

[Cejfi]

@Dmitriy

@Cejfi thanks. Does the eventor work as expected without changing TZ on phone?

Yes, think it works even without 5 minutes delay (mentioned by Gunner before)

[Dmitriy]

Thanks. We will check.

[Costas]

@Cejfi

I expect the msg “It is Working!” to appear in the next 10 minutes

I don’t. You are now in Vladivostok where the time is 23:07 so you will have to wait until 15:10:00 tomorrow for your message.

It might not seem very logical but I think the widget is correct.

I am normally GMT + 3 so when I did the test it was 18:11 here. I set Android TZ to GMT + 2 so phone is now 17:11. Set eventor for 17:13 and a selection of GMT + 3. Note this TZ setting doesn’t appear to do anything but it might if you moved TZ’s between setting it and the Eventor trigger time. It simply indicates the phone time you want the setting to activate and would be 3hrs ahead of GMT if you didn’t switch TZ’s.

Event triggered at 17:13 as requested, which is a local time of 18:13. Events trigger within about 30s of allocated time.

So if you were to actually move to Vladivostok then you need to set the Eventor trigger time to 23:10.

Not sure if that makes things any clearer, but if it doesn’t, provide a real example of time travel where the eventor doesn’t trigger.

[Cejfi]

@Costas

Note this TZ setting doesn’t appear to do anything but it might if you moved TZ’s between setting it and the Eventor trigger time.

Well I think there lies the confusion, if I move somewhere else, normaly I would set my phones time zone acordingly to that new location, what is the point of the TZ setting anyway then… I am not sure, but I think the developer wants to be indipendent from the settings inside the phone, is there any other widget that is somehow related to the settings in the phone.

You also said before that Eventor doesnt use phone time, but how does it know then that I am in Vladivostok if I told Eventor to take the Vienna Time Zone…

P.S. Wondering if this confusion is also everywhere else where you can select time zone in the widgets…

Regards