How Raksha Handles Time Zones
for Families Split Across Countries
"Reached at 9pm" means something different to a parent in India than to a child on a different continent — worth understanding clearly, so a normal night doesn't read as a strange one.
July 2026 · 5 min read
Timestamps Show in Each Viewer's Local Time
An arrival alert or "last seen" time is displayed in the local time of whoever's looking at the phone, not fixed to Indian time or the time zone of the person being tracked. A parent in Mumbai checking on a child studying in the US sees times converted to IST automatically — the same event, shown correctly in each person's own local frame of reference.
Where the Confusion Actually Comes From
An alert that fires at what looks like 2am to the parent, because it's a completely normal early-evening hour where the child actually is
A "hasn't moved in hours" reading that's simply because the child is asleep at a very different local hour than the parent assumes
Daylight saving changes in some countries shifting the time difference by an hour, twice a year, without any change on the India side
A Simple Habit That Prevents Most of This
Before reacting to an alert or a stale location involving a family member abroad, do a quick mental conversion of what time it actually is where they are — most "concerning" readings resolve themselves the moment the local hour is factored in. A short note in the family group about each person's rough daily schedule in their own time zone also helps everyone interpret alerts correctly without needing to calculate it each time.
SOS Isn't Affected by Any of This
An SOS alert reaches the circle immediately regardless of time zones on either end — there's no local-time logic involved in how urgently it's delivered, only in how the accompanying timestamp is displayed to whoever's looking at it.