The Nintendo alarmo clock is very cute

The Puzzle of the Alarmo: A New Alarm Clock for the Nintendo Switch Online ePsi (Early December 2016)

Those two prototypes aren’t as immediately recognizable as an alarm clock, but Akama explained why the team went with the more traditional alarm clock shape with the final product:

However, “the second prototype was difficult for left-handed people to use because the dial was on the right,” Tamori says. “Also, we wanted it to be stable even without the base part, so eventually, we placed all the controls on the top.”

Of all the hardware announcements we might have been expecting next from Nintendo, a new alarm clock was not one of them. The Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo will be available exclusively for the Switch Online customers later this week.

The interview contains a lot of interesting details about the Alarmo, including why the team chose the color red and didn’t include gesture controls.

There was a research project done by our in-house team. “As this sensor maintains privacy since it doesn’t use a camera, we had an idea for how it could be highly suitable for use in the bedroom, so we decided to kick off a new project to see what we could do with it.”

The Nintendo Switch Online Alarmo: How to Get notified about Your Sleep Metrics and Motion Detection Features without a Touchscreen

The top dial lights up in a range of colors; you’ll see quite a few within the first few minutes of using Alarmo. Alarmo has sleep sounds you can dozed off to. Nintendo plans to offer new sounds that can be downloaded to the clock with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription. (When you access this menu, a prompt advises younger users to seek out a parent or guardian.)

It’s the result of a joint project between two sides of the business—hardware developer Tetsuya Akama and games developer Yosuke Tamori—who came together to work on an in-house project, with a goal of supporting people during their sleep.

Is this thing expensive for what it is? Certainly. But for its demographic, it’s very cute, and there are small, thoughtful Nintendo touches throughout the experience — and I’ve barely dug in.

The buttons are on top of Alarmo. The large dial can be turned to navigate menus and pressed to make selections. There’s a back button to the left and a notifications button to the right. I’ve barely used the clock, but presumably, this is where you might get notified about your sleep metrics. (There’s no serious health monitoring or anything like that; don’t expect Mario to warn you about snoring or potential sleep apnea.)

The display is not a touchscreen, nor is it round. I feel like Nintendo exaggerates the size of its video. It adjusts brightness based on the ambient lighting. One fun little detail is that the clock screen and typeface will change depending on the alarm you’ve chosen. Whenever the regular clock is showing, the character onscreen will also move from left to right based on your own movements if you’re within range of the motion sensors.

Turns out, you don’t need to worry about that. I haven’t tried all of Alarmo’s various sounds, but even the Super Mario Bros. theme that plays during the setup process eliminated my worries that it would sound like crap. The setup routine can be a tad lengthy for a child. You choose the date and time, of course, but you’re also led through configuring the clock’s motion-detection features, which takes a bit of time, and I didn’t see any way of skipping it. Alarmo’s millimeter-wave presence sensor works with bed sizes ranging from twin to king, and the screen is meant to face the middle of your bed.

Look, I’m a sucker for instant gratification. It is a favorite thing to do in New York City. This morning, Nintendo announced its $99 Alarmo clock, and when the company’s store in Rockefeller Center opened a couple hours later, I walked in and picked one up. Did I feel a little iffy about paying $108.91 after tax for a plastic alarm clock? You are right. But fortunately, in my field, this counts as a work expense. (Technically, this product is called Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo — but no one is ever going to refer to it that way. It is Alarmo.