Nintendo Alarmo: price, specifications, availability

From all Hardware announcements we might have expected next from Nintendo, a new alarm clock wasn't one of them. But Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo is very real and will be available exclusively to Switch Online customers later this week.

Alarmo looks exactly like an alarm clock you would imagine Nintendo making if you ever imagined Nintendo making an alarm clock. Like something plucked straight from the bedside table of Mario himself, it's a very on-brand shade of red with a round color screen and a large glowing knob on the top for controls and snooze.

It's the result of a joint project between two sides of the company – hardware developer Tetsuya Akama and game developer Yosuke Tamori – who came together to work on an internal project with the aim of helping people sleep.

“It was only after many technical trials and building many prototypes that we decided to focus on alarm clocks,” says Tamori.

Choose your character

Alarmo features 35 scenes inspired by five Nintendo games –Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 3, Pimkin 4And Ring Fit Adventure– Borrowing characters, objects, music and sound effects from each of these game worlds to wake you from your sleep. Simply choose your favorite game, a scene, set a time and let Alarmo do its work.

This is all underpinned by the integrated motion sensor technology, which was the focus of the developers' research and through which Alarmo was created.

“One of our internal projects was researching motion sensing,” says Tamori. “Since this sensor protects privacy by not using a camera, we had an idea how it could be great for use in the bedroom and decided to start a new project to see what we could do with it. ”