The best way I can think of is querying the getlastblockheader and check the timestamp.
Good idea! For the record, the call would require a post with:
"jsonrpc":"2.0",
"id":"yourid",
"method":"getlastblockheader"
}
For example:
Works like a charm, much better than just reading the block chain height and comparing that to chainradar's one... Thanks!