I went into the menu at the controller and the time zone read -4:00. The menu had NTP “on” . The controller could not access the internet or even the local network so this time zone must be part of the code.
Of course the time zone has to have an initial value at factory default setting. It’s like when you re-install your computer, it has to have a default time zone, isn’t right? In this case, it’s set as -4:00 (which matches Boston,MA’s time zone in the summer). But it qucan be anything, and that doesn’t matter, because the time zone will be updated after you put in your location.
I really don’t understand why you are seeing the issue you are seeing. I can’t reproduce this issue, and I don’t see any other report of the same issue. The firmware queries a python script at http://weather.opensprinkler.com/weather0.py?loc=YOUR_LOCATION_STRING to obtain the time zone. So the only thing I can think of is maybe the connection between your OpenSprinkler and the Internet is blocked, that it can’t query the script. That’s the only thing I can think of.