How to spoof your timezone in Google Chrome

Today I learned: you can spoof your timezone in Google Chrome without needing to change your system settings.

I was implementing user timezone preferences for a CMS product when I learned about this, much to my relief. I had been anticipating having to change my system settings over and over again as I tested how my datetime formatting behaved in different timezones.

So how do you do it?

1. Open DevTools in Chrome (F12).
2. If not already shown, open the Console drawer (esc).
3. Click the three, vertically-aligned dots at the top-left of the console drawer (⋮).
4. In the dropdown menu, select Sensors.
5. In the new Sensors tab, you can change your location to one of the presets, or choose "Other..." to manually enter a timezone.

If you're viewing this in Chrome, try it out now and take a look at the current time displayed in the Codepen below.

See the Pen Clock by Aileen Rae (@aileen-r) on CodePen.