Wordpress WP_Query, exclude date from meta term - wordpress

Question

I'm making an API using WP-JSON for a client, they're using a plugin that manage events and the API should return next events, not the past.
function app_get_newer_posts($data) {
$args = array(
'post_type' => 'event',
'post_status' => 'publish',
'posts_per_page' => 99,
'paged' => $data['page'],
'meta_key' => 'ovaem_date_start_time',
'orderby' => 'meta_value_num',
'order' => 'asc'
);
$query = new WP_Query( $args );
if ($query->have_posts()) {
$ret = [];
while ( $query->have_posts() ) {
$term = get_term(get_the_ID,'');
$query->the_post();
setlocale(LC_TIME, 'it_IT.UTF8', 'it.UTF8', 'it_IT.UTF-8', 'it.UTF-8');
if(get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'ovaem_date_start_time')[0] < date("Y-m-d")) {
$ret['schedule'][] = [
'date' => strftime('%e %B %Y',get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'ovaem_date_start_time')[0]),
'category' => [ get_the_terms( get_the_ID(), 'categorie' )[0]->name ],
'premium' => false,
'url' => get_the_permalink(),
'groups' => [[
'time' => utf8_encode( strftime("%d %b %Y", get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'ovaem_date_start_time')[0]) ),
'sessions' => [[
'id' => get_the_ID(),
'name' => html_entity_decode(the_title('','',false), ENT_QUOTES),
'location' => get_the_terms( get_the_ID(), 'location')[0]->name,
'description' => get_the_content(),
'timeStart' => date('d M Y h:i',get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'ovaem_date_start_time')[0]),
'timeEnd' => date('d M Y h:i',get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'ovaem_date_end_time')[0]),
'categories' => [ get_the_terms( get_the_ID(), 'categorie' )[0]->name ],
'pic' => get_the_post_thumbnail_url(),
'position' => [
'lat' => get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'ovaem_event_map_lat')[0],
'lng' => get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'ovaem_event_map_lng')[0]],
'slug' => get_post_field( 'post_name', get_post() ),
]]
]]
];
}
}
} else {
$ret = "-1";
}
return $ret;
}
At the moment, it get all the posts of type event and order by meta_key "ovaem_date_start_time", but it should exclude all the past events.
What parameter should I pass to the args array to compare current meta_key value to today date?

Answer 1

'meta_query' => array(
array(
'key' => 'ovaem_date_start_time',
'value' => time(),
'compare' => '>=',
)
)
Would something like this work, getting all events where the start date is greater than the current date, you may need to change the value as it depends what ovaem_date_start_time is actually saved as whether its time or datetime