Frequently Asked Questions

Zonal is an Android app that gives true flexibility in how you handle time zone changes. It detects your location and displays local time allowing the system time zone to remain untouched, so your sleep tracker, calorie counter, and medication reminders stay accurate across every time zone.

Zonal uses the Google Play Services Fused Location Provider, which combines GPS, Wi-Fi, and cell tower signals to determine your location. From that location it resolves the correct time zone and updates your device automatically, with no manual steps required. It escalates through the least battery intensive methods possible using GPS only as a last resort to reduce battery consumption.

Every health app on your phone trusts the system time zone to be correct. When it's wrong, sleep sessions get logged at the wrong times, calorie tracking shifts to incorrect hours, and medication reminders fire when you're asleep. The data breaks silently and is difficult to fix after the fact.

Yes. Zonal is designed to function fully offline. It does not make any network requests or API calls. GPS-based time zone detection works without an internet connection, so your time zone updates even in airplane mode once you have a GPS fix.

Zonal supports Android 8.0 (Oreo) and above. It requires Google Play Services for location and activity recognition features. Devices without Google Play Services are not supported.

No. Zonal processes all data locally on your device. It does not collect, transmit, or store any personal data on external servers. There are no analytics, no tracking, and no cloud sync.

Zonal requests three permissions: location (to detect your time zone via GPS), activity recognition (to reduce battery use by polling less when you're stationary), and phone state (to read the mobile country code for time zone lookup). Each permission is requested individually, and you can deny any of them.

Yes. If you deny location permission, Zonal falls back to manual time zone selection. You won't get automatic time zone detection, but you can still set your time zone manually within the app.

All data stays on your device. Alarms are stored in a local SQLite database, user preferences in Android SharedPreferences, and monitored time zones in local app storage. Nothing is synced to any cloud service or remote server.

You can delete all data by uninstalling the app or by going to Android Settings, then Apps, then Zonal, then Storage, and selecting Clear Data. Because everything is stored locally, this permanently removes all app data from your device.

Zonal cannot update your time zone mid-flight since GPS is unavailable in airplane mode. Once you land and your device gets a new location, Zonal detects the new time zone and updates your phone automatically, even before you connect to Wi-Fi.

Zonal continuously monitors your location while your phone has any signal and falls back to GPS location. If you cross time zone boundaries on a road trip or cruise, it updates your phone's time zone each time you enter a new zone.

Zonal does not directly track circadian rhythms or provide jet lag advice. What it does is ensure your sleep tracker and health apps record data with the correct local timestamps, which gives you an accurate picture of how your patterns shift when you travel.

Yes. When Zonal updates your phone's time zone, alarms managed by the app which have been selected to fire in the Automatic time zone adjust to the correct local time automatically (if you choose to reschedule them). You do not need to manually recalculate or reset any timed reminders after arriving in a new time zone. Alarms set to specific time zones will never update.

Zonal works at the system level by allowing you to choose your phone's system time zone. Any app that relies on the device time zone for timestamps, including Fitbit, Samsung Health, Google Fit, and others, benefits from having accurate time data without any direct integration.