Nobody Knows What Time It Is — Etc.

Q: How do I add it to my phone's home screen?

On iPhone: open in Safari, tap the share icon, then tap Add to Home Screen. On Android: open in Chrome, tap the three-dot menu, then tap Add to Home Screen or Install app. It opens full-screen with no browser chrome and works offline.

Nobody Knows
What Time It Is

A small app built for the moment someone asks what time it is there and you realize you have absolutely no idea.

Filed by Nomad District · June 2026 · Etc.

Time zones break smart people. I don't know what it is. Someone can run a company, speak three languages, do something genuinely impressive with derivatives, and then completely fall apart when asked what 2pm Pacific is in London. I've watched it happen. The eyes go a little glassy. There's a pause that goes on slightly too long.

For me the problem gets worse when I'm traveling, because now I don't even know what my own time zone is. I'm somewhere, it's some time, and someone needs to move a meeting and we're both doing mental arithmetic that neither of us should be doing.

We're both doing mental arithmetic that neither of us should be doing.

So I built a small app. "Built" is generous, as I have already explained elsewhere. You open it, it shows you the time where you are. You pick a city. It shows you the time there. That's it. There's no onboarding. There's no premium tier. It does the one thing.

The App

What Time Is That

Add it to your home screen. Works offline. No app store required.

Open →

It's already saved me twice in real conversations. Once while planning travel for an event, once trying to move a meeting without accidentally putting myself on a call at 6am. Both times it worked immediately, which felt like a minor miracle.

What Time Is That app showing San Francisco at 5:49 AM and Vienna at 2:49 PM

You can also set either time manually and it calculates the other. In case you need to work backwards. Which you will.

Frequently Asked

Why do time zones feel so hard to convert mentally?+

Because your brain anchors to your own clock and then has to perform arithmetic on top of it — often with a half-hour or fractional offset thrown in. Add the complication of AM/PM crossing midnight, or a date change, and the error rate for otherwise very competent people climbs fast. It is not a cognitive failing. It is just a bad interface between how clocks work and how human intuition works.

What is the easiest way to convert time zones without getting it wrong?+

Use a tool that shows both clocks at once so you are comparing, not calculating. Mental conversion requires holding a number in your head, applying an offset, adjusting for AM/PM, and checking the date — four separate operations, any one of which can be wrong. A visual comparison eliminates all four. That is what this app does.

Can I set a specific time instead of using the current time?+

Yes. Tap either clock to open the time picker and set it to whatever time you need. The other clock updates immediately. This is useful when you are scheduling something — "if I want a 9am call in London, what time is that for me?" — and need to work backwards from a fixed point rather than the current moment.

Does the app work offline?+

Yes, once it has loaded once. It is a progressive web app with a service worker that caches everything it needs. After the first visit it will open and work without a connection — useful in airports, on planes, or anywhere you have signal issues and still need to figure out what time it is somewhere else.

How do I add it to my phone's home screen?+

On iPhone: open the app in Safari, tap the share icon at the bottom of the screen, then tap "Add to Home Screen." On Android: open it in Chrome, tap the three-dot menu, and tap "Add to Home Screen" or "Install app." It will appear on your home screen like any other app, open full-screen with no browser chrome, and work offline.

Nobody Knows
What Time It Is A small app for the one problem that breaks everyone