Phone's "Automatic Time" Changed Zone Randomly

[lune1312]

I rely on my Galaxy A53 phone for alarms in order to wake up on time for events as well as my job, which I have to arrive at by 7:45 with a 30 minute commute.  Overnight, my phone's 'automatic time' changed to Pacific from Eastern Daylight Time.  I woke up at 7:15 today, but my phone said it was 4:15; this was the first time that my phone did this.  Obviously, this caused me to be late today and poses quite the problem.  I know how to change it, and manually selected my correct time zone, but I just cannot wrap my head around why.  It was the automatic time zone, as previously stated, so it was nothing that I did as far as selecting the incorrect time zone.  I also am not using a VPN, if that changes anything.  Why on Earth did my phone's automatic time zone change randomly?

[BlueSkies]

Do you have a Samsung watch or are you using 2 different time zones? Samsung clock has the dual time zone mode https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/how-do-i-change-the-date-and-time/

[lune1312]

I don't have any other Samsung devices, just my phone.  I didn't know about the dual time zone, that's interesting!

[LongHiker · Accepted solution]

@lune1312 When set to automatic time, your phone gets the time from your carrier's base station. Perhaps that base station had a glitch or some other error. 

[lune1312]

That makes sense, that's most likely what happened.  Thank you for your input!