Reminders and Daylight Savings Time

[Slydude]

I use the Reminders app to track several things that I want to be reminded of at specific times such as appointments meetings. I also keep track of one or two internet streams that I usually listen to live. This usually works well because appointments are usually in my time zone and even the podcasts that are not in my time zone work because New York, for example, is always one hour ahead of me and I compensate for that

Everything works fine until the time change occurs and the city in question doesn't follow that time change. Arizona, for example, is one hour behind me part of the year and two hours behind when the time change occurs. Is their any way to get Reminders to compensate for this situation without me having to remember to do it?

 

[ferrarr]

I have issues with understanding how Time Zone works across my devices too. Luckily I no longer need to pay attention anymore. But your question made me look at my MBP Calendar app, because there used to be a checkbox for TZ support. It's still there in Settings Advanced tab. Do you have that enabled?

I looked online and found this, Understand Calendar App Time Zone Support to Avoid Scheduling Mishaps - TidBITS

 

[toMACsh]

We keep hearing that Daylight Saving Time is going to be revoked. If that happens, problem solved.

 

[Jimmysb]

We keep hearing that Daylight Saving Time is going to be revoked. If that happens, problem solved.

For whom, more countries than just the USA have DST, so it will only affect the country that revokes it!!!!

 

[Slydude]

I have issues with understanding how Time Zone works across my devices too. Luckily I no longer need to pay attention anymore. But your question made me look at my MBP Calendar app, because there used to be a checkbox for TZ support. It's still there in Settings Advanced tab. Do you have that enabled?

I looked online and found this, Understand Calendar App Time Zone Support to Avoid Scheduling Mishaps - TidBITS

I'll take a closer look and see if this fixes things. For most things that are time zone dependent I make the adjustment when I set the initial reminder. So, if a stream starts at 9:00 Eastern time I know it is 8:00 Central (my time and create the alarm accordingly.

This compensates effectively for the time zone difference almost everywhere but Arizona. Arizona is 1 hour behind me for part of the year and 2 hours behind the rest of the year when the time change occurs.

Reminders, and the Calendar app for that matter, supports compensating for time zones and does it quite well. The problem is in how the state of Arizona deals with the time change not the time zone difference itself.

 

[ferrarr]

When traveling to Arizona, can you use the Reminders app "Arrive at" location reminder? If you pick a location, on your travels (route?) it will go off. There may even be a way to set a Shortcut up to compensate for Arizonas lack of time?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

The issue is that you are entering the time in your local time zone. Or you're compensating for it manually and setting it at the "correct" time. But since all the times set will follow your local time zone, you'll be in flux.

What you can try to play around with is to set a reminder and set the location of that reminder to be in the appropriate time zone.

Keeping track of time, no pun intended, is one of the hardest thing to do in computers due to time zones and other shifts.

That's why most folks store time in UTC/GMT and convert to local time when displaying. But that doesn't help when you have to convert it across a variety of timezones unless the application is specifically designed to do that.

 

[Slydude]

When traveling to Arizona, can you use the Reminders app "Arrive at" location reminder? If you pick a location, on your travels (route?) it will go off. There may even be a way to set a Shortcut up to compensate for Arizonas lack of time?

I had a similar idea last night after I made my last post. If I have some time today I'm going to experiment with this a bit.

This has really been a low priority for me because most of my appointments/reminders are in my time zone. The ones that aren't are are in places that make the shift to/from Daylight Savings Time so once I make the initial adjustment for time zone differences everything works.

 

[ferrarr]

I just checked out, Xeric Design, which I purchased EarthDesk though, and they have an app called Time Palette which may suit your needs. You can download a trial version to see if it will work, in your situation.

Xeric Design, Ltd. | Time Palette

Xeric Design, Ltd. is a leader in global time and mapping software. Its flagship product, EarthDesk, for both Macintosh and Windows, is enjoyed by users in more than 140 countries.

www.xericdesign.com

 

[MacInWin]

Sly, in a beneficent coincidence, this article was at TidBits last week:

Understand Calendar App Time Zone Support to Avoid Scheduling Mishaps - TidBITS

Scheduling across time zones can cause incorrect calendar reminders and missed meetings. Adam Engst explores the intricacies of time zone management in popular calendar apps and provides practical strategies to help users navigate common scheduling quirks.

tidbits.com

Maybe there is something there for you?

 

[flyboyy]

I bought a digital watch once when it just came out and was excited because with a button i could change time zones. I was constantly travelling so i thought this would be cool. Six months later I moved to St. John's Newfoundland Canada which was 1/2 hour off the rest of the world. Seriously !

Long story but years later due to electrical loads they decided to go to double daylight savings time.

 

[Slydude]

I just checked out, Xeric Design, which I purchased EarthDesk though, and they have an app called Time Palette which may suit your needs. You can download a trial version to see if it will work, in your situation.

Xeric Design, Ltd. | Time Palette

Xeric Design, Ltd. is a leader in global time and mapping software. Its flagship product, EarthDesk, for both Macintosh and Windows, is enjoyed by users in more than 140 countries.

www.xericdesign.com

I missed this post earlier in the week. I'm going to work on this over the weekend so I'll give this a try.