Hi there, I used local time to configure our audiomoths a couple years ago. We were near Tahiti (so UTC -10); however, I used my computer on Pacific time (UTC -8) to set some of the moths. I assumed that since my computer was 2 hours off, I would need to correct the times later. But, the strange thing is that all of the time stamps are correct for local time. For example, I deployed two moths and they both were supposed to start recording at 8am but they were set with different computers on different UTCs. So, one file will say 08:00 UTC -10 and the other will say 08:00 UTC -8. I expected the one on UTC -8 to say 10:00 (which I could then correct to the right local time). I am concerned because I thought the embedded file information was accurate, and was using that to correct other files but that does not seem to be the case here. Hopefully I am just missing something obvious here! Any insight would be appreciated - thank you.
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Strange. I'll double check the implementation but I don't think this has caused issues elsewhere.
Good question - my computer showed Pacific time not Tahitian time (I do not change the time manually when there), I do not recall the other computer's display time. I was connected to wifi in Tahiti, maybe it's possible this somehow affected the internal clock but not the time displayed (since I would have it set to display pacific time zone)?? I just tried googling this for Window 10 but with no success yet. I will look into it further. After 2019, we stopped using local time in our configurations, and all the time stamps are correct since then.
When you say your computer was on Pacific time (UTC -8) and the other computer Tahitian time (UTC-10) can you remember if they were both actually showing the same current local time? If they were that would mean that the actual UTC time on your machine was off by two hours. Did you set the time manually or did it find the time itself via an internet time server? If the UTC time of the computer is correct, the AudioMoth recordings will actually happen at the correct UTC time, no matter what timezone the computer thinks it is in, since everything actually works from UTC.
Thanks Alex, sorry for not being clear. We deployed 40 audiomoths in 2019 near Tahiti. We used the Config App to set the configuration for all of the moths. About 20 were set with my computer that is on Pacific time (UTC -8) and the other half were set with a computer that was on Tahitian time (UTC-10). They were all set using the same configuration which specified local time. The time in the .wav header comment is NOT correct for the ones that were set on my computer. For the moths that I set with my computer, which again is not on the correct local time (it is 2 hours ahead), the .wav header comment has the correct UTC (-8) but also the correct local time. I can hear myself talking on the first recording while deploying the moth at say 8am local time. The comment in the .wav file says 8:00 UTC -8, but that would be 6am local time and I know that file was not recorded at 6am local time. It should say 10:00 UTC -8. To be clear the moths that we set up using another computer that was on UTC -10 all have the correct times. We did not use the Time App or the smart phone Chime App at the time with the moths. I don't believe there is a config.txt file for the software we were using at the time (if there was, I don't have it in our saved files).
Hi, I can't quite follow the sequence of configuring and deploying that you describe. When you say 'configure' do you mean setting the configuration with the Config App? When you say 'set some of the moths' do you mean setting the time with the Time App or the smartphone app? Internally, the AudioMoth always works on UTC. This means that schedules and the internal time is always stored as UTC. When you select local time in the config app, you are just setting the local time adjustment used when displaying the schedule in the configuration app schedule at the time of configuring, and the timezone when generating the filename and the WAV header comments timestamp on the AudioMoth. This means that if you configure and move to another timezone, the AudioMoth will still make recordings according to the original UTC times that were requested when it was configured. The recording time in the WAV header comments, and the filename, will always be the correct time that the recording took place (reported either in UTC or in the timezone that it is was configured in if local time was selected in the Config App when it was configured). If you check the CONFIG.TXT file it will report the UTC times that the scheduled recordings will take place, and the timezone that is used when generating the filename and the WAV header comments timestamp. I'm not sure if that explains what you are seeing here? Alex