How should the photon sync the time with the cloud

[lami]

Photon synchronizes its internal RTC on the startup, when connecting to cloud. It takes a while, so you may want to wait for it. There is nice thread discussing how to do it. But you have to set the timezone by yourself, if I am not mistaken.

Time Synchronization: Can't Set RTC Time Upon Reboot [SOLVED]

Hello there, So I’m using the Spark.syncTime(); function in my void setup() and I’m running into an issue that I can’t seem to work around. void setup() { Spark.connect(); Spark.syncTime(); Spark.process(); Spark.disconnect(); Time.zone(-5); Serial.begin(115200); } When I flash the core the RTC is set correctly, however if I disconnect power or click the reset button on the Core it goes back to 1969-12-31 19:00:00 (as it should) But my core then should be running through the above lines to …

Also having a backup battery on VBAT pin lets Photon keep its RTC running when powered off. If you search for VBAT there are lenghty discussions about it, but somewhat confusing. Not having it would just have you wait for sync each time you power up your Photon. (note though, Core has no VBAT pin, if you by any chance have Spark Core too)