In hindsight, a Nintendo alarm clock seems like a no-brainer. Alarm clocks are pretty standardized at this point in time, so all they really needed to do was take a standard model, stick a few music or voice clips from famous Nintendo video games in there, and wait for the money to start rolling in, right?
But it’s in Nintendo’s nature to put a lot of thought into the design of everything it does, even the no-brainers, and so the company’s surprise-announced Alarmo goes beyond what you’d expect from an alarm clock, and is all the more awesome for it.
And since not just waking up, but getting up is often the first figurative boss battle of the day, when Alarmo’s sensors detect that you’ve managed to actually get out of bed and stand up, it rewards you with a victory fanfare, as shown at the point cued in the video here.
Starting with the obvious ideas, Alarmo features sounds from five Nintendo hits, "Super Mario Odyssey," "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild," "Splatoon 3," Pikmin 4" and "Ring Fit Adventure," playing snippets from the games’ soundtracks to wake you up, and also making use of character art and fonts from each title on its digital display.
But it’s what happens after the alarm goes off that sets Alarmo apart from ordinary alarm clocks. The device is also equipped with motion sensors, and your post-alarm movements will trigger sound effects. For example, in the demonstration video here, the alarm goes off at 7:30 to a piece from the "Super Mario Odyssey" soundtrack, and when the woman rolls over in bed, Alarmo plays a cascade of coin sounds from the game.
And since not just waking up, but getting up is often the first figurative boss battle of the day, when Alarmo’s sensors detect that you’ve managed to actually get out of bed and stand up, it rewards you with a victory fanfare, as shown at the point cued in the video here.
The goal is to turn something mundane and unpleasant, having to wake up when you’d naturally still be asleep, into a bit of fun and adventure to start your day with, giving you the feeling of waking up within the world of a Nintendo game. Of course, even the promise of celebratory music might not always be enough to convince you to get out of bed, so naturally there’s a snooze function…which grows more intense if you stay in bed for an extended period of time, such as Mario music transitioning to growls from arch-nemesis Bowser.
The device’s motion sensors allow for hands-free operation, in that you don’t need to touch it to turn it off – the alarm stops automatically once the sensors detect that you’ve stood up. If you’re thinking this means you can outsmart Alarmo by pretending to get up by standing up for a second but then going lying down again and going back to sleep, think again, because the sensors also check to make sure you haven’t returned to a prone position within an hour of the alarm time you’d set.
In addition to all this, Alarmo can be set to make hourly themed chimes and can also track your sleep patterns and display the data to help with wellness planning. As it’s an internet-connectable device, Nintendo is promising future free updates to its sound library, with "Mario Kart" and "Animal Crossing" coming soon.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of all, though, is that Alarmo is available right now. It’s being offered through the My Nintendo Store online shops in both the U.S. and Japan (here and here), priced at $99.99 and 12,980 yen, respectively, as well as at the physical Nintendo official stores in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and New York. There is a bit of a catch in that purchasers must currently have an active Nintendo Switch Online subscription, but odds are people who want an interactive Nintendo alarm clock and people with a Switch Online account are two groups with a pretty broad overlap. Nintendo of Japan is also saying that it plans to make Alarmo available at general video game retailers in mid-February of next year.
Source: Nintendo via Jin
Insert images: YouTube/Nintendo of America, Nintendo
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virusrex
The price is steep enough to think twice before buying it, but even if cheap for some people having this would likely lead to hating all Nintendo sounds after a while.