Nintendo's Alarmo is a cute if impractical way to wake up in the morning

Like most people, my smartphone is also my alarm clock.

It’s not a great solution, as it usually leads me to doomscroll late at night when I should be going to bed. I can’t remember when I last had a real clock on a bedside table. It was probably when I was a child, if then.

So, as a concept, the Nintendo Alarmo isn’t something I need, but was something that I wanted. That’s an important distinction, one that I think Nintendo understands better than almost any other company. This is a product that is so cute and so uniquely Nintendo, that it almost makes up for the fact that I won’t be able to use it as intended.

How much does it cost and what’s in the box?

The Alarmo costs 129,99€ and for that, you get a distinctly Nintendo branded device with the bare minimum in the box. After opening the bright and cheery exterior, you’ll find a quick instruction manual, a 1.5 meter USB-A to USB-C cable, and the clock itself. That’s it. No AC adapter, for example. Which already puts a dent into the festive mood.

After all, this is a clock. It needs a place to plug in. It doesn’t have its own internal power. So, before you even start, you’re going to have to find an AC adapter and decide whether or not the 1.5 meter cord length is enough.

I won’t lie, the lack of anything notable or extra in the box is a bit of a bummer. Nintendo is usually good with delivering value for the money, but in its current format, the Alarmo feels like a trial for what it can and can’t get away with it. For 129.99€, I’d argue that an AC adapter is an absolute must. Along with a longer cable.

How does it work?

The Alarmo is simple to set up and use, and it’s in the design language and charm that Nintendo makes up for any complaints about price. From the moment you turn on it, Alarmo is a delight.

At first, you set the basics, like current time and date. Then, Alarmo checks its location and how far it is from you when sleeping (more on this later). You also need to pick the size of your bed from single, double, queen to king size. After that, Alarmo makes you do a bit of posturing in front of its sensors to see that it recognizes your movements. The whole way through, it dings and beeps with the iconic sounds that has made Nintendo, well, Nintendo.

Once done, you pick a scene from one of your favorite Nintendo titles to serve as the backdrop for alarms. These range from old school Mario to Pikmin and Zelda, and there are a good 30 in total at launch.

I went with the New Donk City scene, featuring one of my favorite moments from Super Mario Odyssey. Weirdly, Alarmo doesn’t allow you to preview the music when selecting the scene, so you have to just trust it that this is exactly the music you’re thinking of.

You do get a sense of what the speakers are like during setup, and it’s another happy surprise as they’re quite loud and clear. Something I wasn’t expecting considering the size and weight of Alarmo. The entire clock fits in the palm of my hand and weighs just over 200 grams. It’s a tiny thing, but somehow doesn’t feel flimsy and sounds great.

The screen is 2.8 inches and square, which is a bit odd since the display itself is round, and gets reasonably bright, but will glare if there’s a lot of light in the room. If you have even a slightly dimmer bedroom, you won’t have any troubles. But my bedroom has windows facing East, which means that in the summer the Alarmo will have a lot of trouble against the light.

Common issues

Alarmo has to be setup very close to the bed and the sensor itself isn’t as accurate as I’d hope.

For example, my bed is a king size mattress for two people, which means Alarmo can only detect one of us at any given time. If the other person gets up earlier or moves unexpectedly during the night, I noticed that Alarmo can’t distinguish between users. At one point, it just assumed that I had woken up and put itself to snooze through the alarm. Not a perfect result, to say the least.

Also, because the cable is so short, Alarmo has only limited places you can set it in the default setup. I bought a longer cable for the clock, and it did help somewhat in placement.

When the alarm goes off, Alarmo will play music from your chosen scene, along with a character who runs in and out of view to check that you’re getting up. If you don’t, the music and the character become more insistent, until an angrier mascot shows up to yell at you for being lazy. It’s super cute and a lot of fun, at least when it works.

As stated, the motion sensor zone is very limited, and I found that in a darkened room, or a room with cats, which both describe my bedroom, Alarmo had a hard time recognizing my sleep patterns. Eventually, I just turned the motion sensor off, at which point Alarmo works as a regular clock where you press the large white button on the top to turn it on or off.

Which is fine, but it kind of defeats the purpose of Nintendo’s idea of mixing retro design with futuristic technology.

Alarmo also can’t set up routines or anything more complex than a wake up time for the next morning. If you’re looking for something that you set up once and never look at again, this isn’t it. A part of Alarmo’s charm is that you fiddle with it often, so that it can remind you of how cute it is.

Best elements

The Alarmo is charming, easy to use, and so much fun. Each of these things weigh more in the final verdict than its issues, of which there are a few.

But let’s consider what Alarmo offers. Nintendo calls is a Sound Clock, which is on brand for their penchant for naming things off-kilter. Think of it like a mascot for whatever room you use it in. It has an anthropomorphic quality to it, like you’re interacting with Nintendo characters while doing regular chores.

After turning off the sensor for my bedroom, I found that I didn’t get as much out of Alarmo as I wanted to, so I moved the entire clock to my office, where it now rests on my work desk. Here, the sensor works just fine, and the limited space is to its benefit. I can now set alarms that don’t require me to look at my phone and risk getting distracted. Every glance at the screen makes me smile. I get a quick dose of nostalgia along with the time, and that’s enough for me to make Alarmo worthwhile.

On top of that, once the initial set up is out of the way, Alarmo is so easy to use that anyone in the family can make it work. I don’t think enough people give Nintendo credit for how difficult that kind of accessibility is. Alarmo’s user interface is sparse, but clean, and the settings prove remarkably intuitive even with certain cutesy terminology getting in the way.

Who’s it for?

Alarmo is, as you might expect from Nintendo, a device for the whole family. If you’re already a Nintendo fan and have a bunch of their toys in the house, getting Alarmo should be a no-brainer. It’s a delightful toy that has, at its best, real usefulness for anyone who just wants a simple, but lovingly created mascot clock.

As a first generation product, it’s remarkably finished in its current state. Meaning that while it has issues that all first generation products do, and it’s still figuring out exactly what it wants to focus on, Alarmo is polished, well-built, and fun. It’s a sign that Nintendo, one of the greatest toy-makers in history, can still reinvent classics to fit their brand.

For me, Alarmo is now a regular fixture of my office. It makes me happy just by existing, and that’s all I can ask for with a device like this. Sometimes, that’s enough.