Maybe it’s the technical writer’s way of saying “we ping an NTP server so don't worry” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39065780

(Clearly that didn't pan out so well)

Without internet access?

My guess was that it probably had a time correction feature from those British radio tower integration, but this device is from 2015 (says in the article), so probably not.

From the Mastodon thread:

> Turns out, they found out an even more innovative time sync mechanism. When you open the UI in the browser, they quickly redirect you to "/set-time/" + Date.now(). This sets a global variable in the Node.js app responsible for "now".

(https://mastodon.social/@laplab/111789584104871367)

Maybe they originally intended for them to be internet connected? That would also explain the MQTT.

Yeah I think it makes more sense like you said. It has the Wifi stuff there already too.

Could prolly take it out of access point and attach it to your network (or one you segregated from your actual network). Set up nat, dyndns, wireshark and see what happens.