Nintendo announces a $100 alarm clock

Nintendo is once again proving that it could release just about anything at any price and all us fans will eat it up. The latest example is Alarmo, a $100 alarm clock featuring authentic sounds and animations from your favorite Nintendo franchises. Most of us were expecting the Switch 2 to be the next piece of Nintendo hardware, but this just proves that no one can predict what Nintendo will do next. Will this be enough to hold me over until the new console is announced? No, but you can bet I’m going to be buying it anyway.

Alarm clocks are not exactly something in high demand anymore. In fact, almost everyone is more comfortable using their phones to wake them up. However, Nintendo isn’t just selling us an overpriced basic appliance. This compact little clock has some nifty features that can enhance your entire morning. Whether or not that’s worth the asking price is up to you, but you will want to decide fast because I predict this thing will sell out the day it goes on sale in 2025.

Start your day with Alarmo

Kick your day off with some classic game tunes and chimes

Alarmo is a red cylindrical clock that does exactly what you would expect an alarm clock to do: wake you up. However, Nintendo has made the entire experience a bit more fun by allowing you to pick a title and scene to theme your alarm around, such as Mario, Splatoon, or Zelda. These characters will appear on the clock face until the time of the alarm at which point music and sound effects from their respective game will begin to play to wake you up. Examples include the Jump Up Superstar song, sound of coins, and ink splats from Splatoon.

The clock will feature a motion sensor so you can control it with your gestures in addition to the manual buttons. Waving your hand will lower the volume as you wake up, but if you don’t move at all then the clock will snooze and automatically wait a brief time before starting up again. But beware, because if you snooze too long Bowser may show up to give you a bit more motivation to get going.

The clock features a few other nifty features, such as hourly charms, soft sounds to help you sleep, and uses a motion sensor to track your sleep patterns.

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Nintendo knows we’ll buy anything

If it features Mario, fans will pay anything

Only Nintendo would be bold enough to not only make an alarm clock and charge $100 for it. Despite this, time has proven that fans will flock to anything Nintendo-related no matter the cost. There are plenty of people out there (myself included) who will at least be tempted to grab this oddity if only for the novelty of owning a Nintendo alarm clock.

The novelty of the clock will at least last for a while thanks to the promise of DLC (yes, your alarm clock now gets DLC). If you link your Nintendo Account you can add in more sounds and effects from Mario Kart 8 and Animal Crossing: New Horizons at a later date for free. If more games are added as options over time, it could keep your wake-up routine fresh and exciting all year.

Currently, only Nintendo Switch Online members can purchase Alarmo while everyone else will have to wait for an unannounced date to get their hands on it. As silly as the idea might be, this will no doubt sell out right away so act fast if you have even a passing interest in owning one since Nintendo probably won’t be making many more batches of these.

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