World clock web service?

Question

What is the most reliable World Clock web service you use?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, you will probably never get a truly accurate atomic clock web service due to delays in transporting messages / packets back and forth from your computer to the server.

Most atomic clocks that are accessible over the Internet use a specific protocol called Network Time Protocol , which includes a jitter buffer that specifically takes into account and configures based on latency of transportation. This provides a more accurate representation of atomic clocks than using a web service via HTTP.

I think that if you should use a web service, the most accurate will be the one that is located on the server, which is physically and geographically closest to you, and also has the least number of network flights to get from your own machine to the server, since this will reduce packet delay.

Answer 2

It’s clear about latency. With that in mind, I am switching to the NIST website for the United States and World Time Server for the rest. I do not know if this is the "best".

Answer 3

I think that due to latency there is no such thing as a reliable atomic clock web service.

Answer 4

Here's a blog post that comes to the same conclusion .

Purists quickly point out the problem of accuracy. But I'm sure you couldn't even get the exact time, even if your application sits on the same server as the atomic clock software itself.

I think there is a need for a watch web service. I can think of a few scenarios where it doesn't matter that there aren’t a few seconds.

In addition to accuracy, another difficult area for servicing date and time is the recording of summer information from most countries. This is something that even the latest operators seek to get the right. But this is definitely what will make the watch web service valuable.

Answer 5

Since there are so few web services that delivery time, http://www.timeapi.org/utc/now is the only reliable web service I know of (except for http://www.earthtools.org/timezone / 0/0 , which does not seem reliable). Therefore, this is the most accurate that I can recommend, especially if you simply use it to determine the difference between local time and UTC, which can be rounded to the next 15 minutes. And if you want time in a specific time zone, replace utc with the three-letter abbreviation for the time zone - i.e. http://www.timeapi.org/est/now for Eastern Standard Time.

Answer 6

The NTP web service will be fine as long as the delay is predictable. NTP is a wired protocol and very easy to remove any moving parts that might cause an additional change in latency (aka jitter). The SOAP stack will lead to more volatility.