Time zone for Firebase.ServerValue.TIMESTAMP

Question

It appears that when I use Firebase.ServerValue.TIMESTAMP currently, it is using PDT (I assume that will be changing to PST in the fall).

Is there a way to get this in UTC instead of PDT?

Answer 1

Firebase timestamps are always stored as milliseconds since the epoch (midnight of 1/1/1970 in UTC). This is the same way that dates work in Javascript and many other languages. This is a timezone-agnostic way of representing time.

Generally speaking, timezone only plays a role in how a time is displayed to a user, not in how it's represented under-the-hood. Firebase timestamps are no different.

So, if you construct a JS date object using a timestamp created by Firebase.ServerValue.TIMESTAMP, it will automatically have the same timezone as the machine on which it is being displayed.