Nintendo has announced a new piece of hardware! But not quite the Switch 2 news that people were expecting: it’s called Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo, an interactive alarm clock that detects your movements while waking up and plays music and sound effect accodringly.
The clock will feature characters, sounds and music from five games: Super Mario Odyssey, Pikmin 4, Splatoon 3, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Ring Fit Adventure. Content from more games will be available in the future as free updates for the device, including Mario Kart 8: Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Each game will feature up to seven scenes, which are a combination of music and sound effects that function as an alarm for you to wake up. If you move your body while waking up, the clock will play sounds, like getting coins. When the clock detects you are already up, it will play a little victory fanfare. If you are a bit lazy, the alarm sounds will increase its intensity until you start your day.
Alarmo features a 2.8 inch LCD screen and a big button on top. It has other uses too: it plays Nintendo ambience music at every hour and sleepy sounds at night for you to relax (a bit like the Pokémon Sleep app) and tracks records of your sleep patterns.
For a limited time, the Nintendo Sound Clock Alarmo is available to buy on the US Nintendo Store, at $99.99 and only for paid Nintendo Switch Online users, before it’s made available for the general public on an unspecified date. No date or price has been announced for Europe either.
If it feels a bit strange, let’s not forget Nintendo used to make weird toys and contraptions for a living before making videogames, as the recently opened Nintendo Museum told. A lengthy interview with the device creators has been published on Nintendo website.
One of the creatprs is Yosuke Tamori , who previously worked on Splatoon and Nintendo Labo, and told how it came to be: “One of our in-house projects was to research motion sensor technology. 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.”