In an effort to dominate every inch of your household, Nintendo has introduced Alarmo, a video game-themed alarm clock that features some nifty motion-activated features. It’s a cutesy-designed device that doesn’t offer a lot of bells and whistles, but it’s also not without some useful options for kids and adults.
After using Alarmo over the last few weeks, there’s no denying Nintendo has injected a little fun into the wake-up routine – gamifying it in some ways. Nintendo fans will certainly find elements to like about it, and future Alarmo updates will widen the alarm clock’s appeal, but the $99 price is steep.
The Alarmo itself is designed with a square screen built into the circular clock face, a big button on the top with an RGB light inside that can also turn for menu navigation, and two menu buttons on the side of the button, a back button and a messages button. It’s a little disappointing that the screen doesn’t fill the full circle of the clock face, but it’s not noticeable when looking at the clock in the dark or the early morning hours.
Currently, the clock font and a few other elements can be themed after Mario, Legend of Zelda, Splatoon, Pikmin, and Ring Fit Adventure. This ties into the alarm element of the Alarmo, but just as a clock, the device has a definite Nintendo aesthetic to it.
Alarmo Makes Waking Up a Game
Speaking of the alarm in Alarmo, this is where the device really sets itself apart. By setting a wake-up time, Alarmo will then trigger its alarm at that time with a themed scene. You can set the theme from one of those aforementioned properties (with multiple options within each theme) and then the scene will “start” as the alarm’s version of going off.
As the alarm goes off, Alarmo will start increasing the volume of its scene’s music or sound effects and the translucent button will glow various colors. The interactivity comes into play as Alarmo uses its motion sensor to register your movements and have the on-screen character interact based on the scene. For example, Mario might punch a coin block multiple times as you toss around in bed, struggling to wake up. And finally, when Alarmo registers you have moved out of its motion detection, a completion sequence will play and the alarm will turn off.
Motion-controlled alarms are nothing new but Nintendo’s implementation with Alarmo is clever. For kids it makes the waking up process more fun and can serve as motivation to get out of bed. And for those who are curious, Alarmo has a setting where the alarm will turn back on if you get back into bed within an hour of the wake-up time. So you can’t just get out of bed to turn it off and then go right back to sleep.
Alarmo does feature a standard alarm clock option where the device makes a sound at a predetermined time and pressing the top button turns it off. Doing that arguably makes Alarmo little more than a $100 alarm clock, but some might prefer the standard wake-up procedure with the Nintendo theming.
Nintendo Alarmo Features and Setup
Setting up Alarmo is really simple and menu navigation is easy. Turning the button on the top of Alarmo cycles through various options like picking your wake-up time and what theme you like. To make sure the motion control wake-up works correctly you set Alarmo’s position on your nightstand, but ideally, you want it facing the middle of your bed. In testing with my family, there were no issues with the Alarmo registering movements or when I finally got out of bed. But obviously, the real selling point is the gamification of the wake-up process and my son has loved having Alarmo in his room. It adds a little fun to his morning and something for us to talk about each day, as he has his theme set to random so the scene is different each morning.
Another cool thing about Alarmo is that it keeps a sleep record and shows you how long you were “asleep” and when you were more mobile. It’s not entirely accurate because it only registers when you are in bed, but for anyone who likes sleep tracking, it’s a nice bonus. Or maybe you’re tech-savvy and you want to run Doom on Alarmo.
While the themes are limited to start, Alarmo can receive regular updates over Wifi and Nintendo has promised more IP will join its selection over time. It will be nice to see what Nintendo adds, so it might be worth waiting to see what those end up being. As mentioned, each IP has several scenes, but if you are a fan of an IP that isn’t one of the 5, that’s something to keep in mind.
Another thing to keep in mind for parents is that although a Nintendo-themed alarm might seem kid-focused, the argument could be made that a kid doesn’t need an alarm. My kid wakes up at practically the same time every day without any alarm, and those days when it would be nice to have him sleep in, you don’t want an alarm waking them up early.
It really is the $99 price tag that will make Alarmo feel more like a novelty and a fan-focused purchase than anything else. The motion control wake-up function is cool, but a lot of the device’s selling point features carry caveats. If I was a kid, though, the idea of waking up to Link’s “Hiya” would be hard to pass up, and I don’t blame any Nintendo fan who picks up Alarmo.
Nintendo Alarmo is available now. Game Rant was provided a unit for this review.