The Switch 2 is here! Just kidding. Nintendo’s newest gadget is actually the Alarmo, a clock that helps you get up in the morning. The device is the Mario maker’s latest whimsical yet bizarre attempt to meddle in the most unlikely aspects of its gaming fans’ lifestyles.
The $100 hardware is a clock with an LCD screen that plays animations and an alarm mode that tries to gently wake you up in the morning. With a motion sensor, you can activate the snooze function by moving your arm or turn it off completely when you get out of bed. It can even spy on you while you sleep to tell you how much you toss and turn. Pre-orders for Switch Online subscribers open today, but the devices themselves won’t ship until early 2025.
Mario isn’t the only one encouraging you to get off your lazy ass and earn coins. Alarmo will contain 35 scenes from games like Splatoon 3, Pikmin 4, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildand more to get you started. Later scenes from Animal Crossing: New Horizons And Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will be available later as free updates.
There are two main modes for Alarmo. The first is called “Steady Mode,” an alarm that gets more intense the more time you spend in bed. The other is called “Gentle Mode” and provides a more consistent level of gaming cacophony. There are also buttons if you’re old like me and don’t want to put your wake-up routine in the hands of a robot.
Nintendo’s website walks you through a standard alarm sequence. Just before the alarm time, a character appears on the screen. The tones will then be played at the specified time. At some point, a character like Peach comes to patiently wake you up. Snoozing will cause the cycle to repeat itself, but if you continue to snooze, Bowser will eventually show up and lecture you about your poor grind set.
Alarmo definitely It looks like it’s the mysterious hardware for which FCC filings were recently discovered. Alongside the expected announcement of the Switch 2, fans speculated whether it was a new peripheral for Nintendo’s long-awaited next console. That’s not it. Still, I kind of like the idea. $100 sounds like a lot, but it’s still less than other popular WiFi-enabled super alarm clocks.
