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Well, Nintendo announced a brand new product today, but it certainly isn't the Nintendo Switch 2 that everyone's been hoping for for the last few months. No, instead, Nintendo has revealed Alarmo – a rather expensive alarm clock that essentially watches you sleep.
For $100, you too can be the proud owner of an admittedly adorable little interactive clock. Its whole deal, it seems, is making waking up "fun" by waking you up with sounds and noises from different Nintendo games, which will respond to your movements as you wake up, and give you a victory fanfare when you eventually get out of bed.
It does this using a motion sensor, which producer Yosuke Tamori clarifies in an 'Ask the Developer' interview "maintains privacy since it doesn't use a camera." Product director Tetsuya Akama adds that it's a radio-wave sensor that "can recognize very subtle movements" without the need to film any video. Even so, the device will be watching out for your movements – a promotional video shows that more sounds will play during your alarm when you start moving, and that it'll stop itself once you leave your bed.
Wake up to a world of games with Nintendo Sound Clock: #Alarmo – an interactive alarm clock that detects the movements you make while getting up! pic.twitter.com/tLbCE6iUHXOctober 9, 2024
Otherwise, Alarmo offers hourly chimes to play throughout the day, as well as sleep tracking records, and soothing sounds to sleep to. At launch, there'll be 35 different themed scenes to choose from, from games like Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and somewhat amusingly, free updates for the clock have already been announced, so you'll be able to download more (including from Animal Crossing: New Horizons) as they become available. There are no actual games included, nor a reward system, as Akama suggests that "once the rewards stop, you may lose your motivation to wake up."
It's a cute idea, although quite an expensive one, and one that won't work exactly as intended if you have more than one person in a bed – its product page suggests using the 'Button Mode' in this case, which'll basically make it function like a regular alarm clock. From now until mid January next year, Nintendo Switch Online subscribers in the US and Canada can buy the clock before it becomes available to the general public.
Be sure to check out our list of upcoming Switch games for 2024 and beyond to see what games are on the horizon, or our roundup of the best Switch games you can play now.
