A closer look at Nintendo's adorable alarm clock

Look, I'm a fan of instant gratification. It's often one of my favorite things about living in New York City. This morning Nintendo announced its $99 Alarm Clock, and when the company's Rockefeller Center store opened a few hours later, I went in and picked one up. Was I a little concerned about paying $108.91 after taxes for a plastic alarm clock? You can bet on it. But luckily in my area that counts as workload. (Technically, this product is called Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo – but no one will ever call it that. It's Alarmo.)

The Verge's Senior Entertainment Editor Andrew Webster will be publishing a full review of Alarmo soon, but I wanted to check it out for myself. Above all, I was curious about the audio quality. If the speaker of this relatively small clock sounds tinny or shrill, that would ruin the whole concept for me.

Turns out you don't have to worry about that. I haven't tried all the different Alarmo sounds yet, but even those Super Mario Bros. The theme that plays during the setup process eliminated my concerns that it would sound crappy. This setup routine is actually quite tedious and might prove to be a bit too much for a child. You select the date and time, of course, but you're also guided through configuring the watch's motion detection features, which takes a bit of time and I didn't see any way to skip it. Alarmo's millimeter wave occupancy sensor works with bed sizes from twin to king, and the screen is aimed at the center of your bed.

The display is not a touchscreen and is not round either. (And I feel like Nintendo's promotional video exaggerates the size a bit.) The brightness automatically adjusts based on the ambient lighting. A fun little detail is that the clock screen and font change depending on the alarm selected. When the normal clock is displayed, the character on the screen also moves from left to right based on your own movements, provided you are within range of the motion sensors.

You control Alarmo with the buttons at the top. The large dial can be rotated to navigate menus and pressed to make selections. There is a back button on the left and a notification button on the right. I haven't used the watch much, but you'll probably be informed about your sleep values ​​here. (There's no serious health monitoring or anything like that; don't expect Mario to warn you about snoring or possible sleep apnea.)

The upper dial lights up in different colors; You will see some of these in the first few minutes of using Alarmo. In addition to the core alarm function, Alarmo also offers sleep sounds that you can fall asleep to. Nintendo plans to offer new sounds that can be downloaded to the watch with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription. (When accessing this menu, younger users are prompted to see a parent or guardian.)

Is this thing absurdly expensive for what it is? Surely. But for its demographic, it's very cute and there are little, thoughtful Nintendo touches throughout – and I barely got into it.

Here are some more photos of the $99 Nintendo Watch.