Nintendo is launching recent gaming hardware in 2024. It’s not a Switch 2, it’s Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo, a recent motion-sensing alarm clock that wakes you from sleep with the sounds of video games like Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildand more.
The $99.99 alarm clock includes 35 wake-up “scenes” from Nintendo Switch games. Users will “experience immersive sounds and music” from these scenes, which are styled after Nintendo franchises. Alarmo will also track users’ sleep and movement; The logs will track how much you move, similar to the Pokémon Go Plus Plus sleep tracker that Nintendo released for Pokémon Go/Pokémon Dream (and the long-promised but seemingly abandoned QOL project).
Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo will come with a variety of alarm settings, Nintendo said in a press note. The clock’s fixed mode includes an alarm that will gradually get louder the longer you stay in bed. Gentle mode offers a “more consistent level of intensity.” Button mode is the classic snooze button mode where you have to hit the Alarmo to silence it. Nintendo’s recent motion-sensing interactive alarm clock also features “dream sounds” – soothing music that will hopefully lull you to sleep at night.
Alarm is available buy directly from Nintendobut only for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. The company said Nintendo will sell the Alarmo at retail starting in early 2025.
Nintendo first announced plans to release a sleep monitoring device in 2014. At the time, the company had much broader plans for its quality-of-life device: It hoped to employ motion sensors to read not only a user’s movement, but also heart rate, breathing, and fatigue, and connect that data to dedicated Nintendo video game devices. Then-Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said in 2014 that the company planned to expand into the health market, hoping it could improve “quality of life through entertainment.” However, with the success of the Switch, Nintendo put a damper on its plans for QOL devices… until now.
More information about the development of Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo can be found on the website recent Ask the developer questions and answers on the Nintendo website.
