Hands-on with Nintendo’s surprise alarm clock, Alarmo

Alarmo! Like a sudden ringtone, Nintendo’s latest surprise product appeared out of nowhere. The Switch 2 isn’t coming until 2025, but in the meantime, Nintendo has a new clock with musical themes and what looks like surprisingly advanced technology. Yes, it’s an alarm clock. It’s called Alarmo. It’s available now and we tried one out.

Now… what is Alarmo again?

The round display alarm clock is an internet-connected device with various musical themes and images related to Nintendo games. Zelda, Mario, Ring Fit Adventure… they are here. But it gets even stranger: Alarmo also has motion sensors. As you toss and turn, Alarmo adds sound effects to match the alarm. You may hear coins or Splatoon paintballs. Then you get up, and Alarmo is celebrating.

Check this out: Get started with Alarmo: Nintendo’s high-tech alarm clock turns waking up into a game

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It can be purchased now from Nintendo Store locations, or ordered through Nintendobut requires a Switch Online subscription. Nintendo says it will come to other stores in early 2025.

There’s even more he can do: the clock measures and tracks sleep movements; it has gentle or more intense alarm modes; and it can play relaxing music before going to bed. It sounds like a smart sleep clock meets an immersive Nintendo bed buddy.

In many ways, this clock almost sounds like the type of product Disney would sell. Now that Nintendo already has stores, movies, and theme parks, maybe that’s the point. $100 is a lot for a novelty gift, but this also looks like a smart device that will actually be updated over time. There are 35 scenes loaded from five different games (Mario Odyssey, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 3, Pikmin 4 and, oddly enough, Ring Fit Adventure), but Nintendo’s promising more will come over time.

It also feels like classic wildcard Nintendo. Mario Kart Live, Play and watch and those mini consoles were also surprise gifts. Alarmo feels even more unusual, but it also targets Nintendo fans and their wallets directly.

Practical impressions

Shortly after Alarmo was announced, CNET’s Bridget Carey ran to the Nintendo Store to pick one up and get some initial thoughts on video. Her thoughts are below:

Once you turn it on, Alarmo will take the time to guide users in understanding the motion sensor and positioning it correctly near your bed. Similar to a game tutorial, you practice making the game sounds by making movements and moving your body in front of Alarmo. It collects information about how big your bed is and where the Alarmo is positioned in relation to your head, and then performs a wake-up test again. I appreciate how much time Nintendo spends on the installation process, as you want to make sure it works properly before you actually have to get up.

For the first few moments, we enjoyed the immersive sounds of Zelda (you can choose to wake up to seven different audio environments for each game). For Zelda, there are some fun environments, but if you’re more motivated to take on a stressful Bokoblin battle, you can do just that: your movements in bed become sword swings. If you’d rather lie in bed dreaming about the Great Fairies, you can make them swoon and groan with your movements when it’s time to get up (it’s pretty funny).

The alarm starts softly, but becomes louder the longer it goes off. We haven’t had time to test this part out yet, but if you sleep through the alarm it seems to indicate that other stressful sounds will start playing. The fun part might be how much you have to move and get out of bed before the alarm stops. You can also use a button on top to turn off the alarm.

There are also soothing bedtime sounds. Set the time you go to bed, and when it detects you’re in bed, it plays 10 minutes of soothing game sounds. Before Zelda, we heard a crackling fire, perhaps from where Link camped deep in Hyrule.

If you want to keep yourself surprised in the morning, you can set it to random between game wake-up sounds or randomize it to switch to one of the available alarms.

There is also sleep registration. All motion sensors also help track how much you move during your sleep, and the data is kept for a year.

We’ll get deeper review impressions when we start using it in our home. Oh yes, we wake up with Alarmo.