A new focus should always start automatically after 24 hours even if a player didn’t claim the rewards of the old focus yet.
Otherwise one is always forced to be online at the moment when the focus ends to be able to start a new focus.
Especially as a focus period lasts 24 and not 23 hours, the end time of the focus changes every day until it is once in the middle of the night. Human players cannot be online 24/7 though.
Agreed 100%