Nintendo wants u 2 switch 2 their new alarm clock

The Quality of Life initiative finally comes to fruition with Alarmo

Nintendo is known for its weird hardware. Just this gaming generation alone it made the Ring Fit… ring, LABO, the Poké Ball Plus (and the Pokémon GO Plus +. The latter product especially is paired with the Pokémon Sleep app to track our snoozing time, and may have evolved out of Nintendo’s long-announced Quality of Life initiative for products. In fact it’s been exactly TEN YEARS, almost to the day, that a sleep sensor was announced as a part of that QoL directive. That sensor would sit on a bedside and track motion, breathing, etc and relay that to Nintendo’s cloud to determine how we can improve our sleep habits.

Then just last month, an FCC application arrived for a mysterious new Nintendo device that was obviously NOT the Switch 2 but something else.

Now we know what that device is and how all of this ties together: Nintendo has made an alarm clock.

Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo is a long name for the little device that intends to sit on our bedside. Designed with that very familiar playful, adorable Nintendo design language in mind, Alarmo is a round red clock with a screen that plays mini scenes and music from Nintendo franchises like the Legend of Zelda and Splatoon. Themes can be selected (and downloaded) via a large button/dial on top, so if we’re in a mode for Link in the Summer but Mario in Autumn then we have that luxury. When the alarm goes off it will do so subtly, slowly raising in volume to wake our butt up.Once it notices movement (starting to shift in bed or stretching, for instance) it’ll play action sounds, like coins being collected or ink splats, with a big finishing audio clip once we’ve finally gotten out of bed. It’ll even play music for us to put us to sleep, too, if we choose.

The idea is that we’d never have to actually touch the clock again once we’ve set it up, so that it becomes an unobtrusive part of our day (apart from the audio, of course).

Nintendo likes to make quirky things, pulling its design language and characters into different aspects of our lives. Can this all be done with a phone or watch app? Sure. But it wouldn’t look like a friendly little toy in our rooms if it did.

Alarmo is available now at the Nintendo NYC store and online exclusively for Switch Online members. It will hit retail elsewhere at the beginning of the year.

More info is at Nintendo’s Alarmo website