Alarmo: Wake Up with Mario – WorthPoint

Collectors and fans have a new way to enjoy some of their favorite sounds and characters from Nintendo games. The company has introduced an alarm clock that might be the solution to oversleeping after a late-night gaming session.

Alarmo, a bedside alarm clock with WiFi connectivity and motion detection, was released this month, and users are already scooping it up and sharing their experiences online. The clock has 35 sounds from five different Nintendo games: Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 3, Pikmin 4, and Ring Fit Adventure.

NES is counting on the community of Nintendo Switch users for buzz and has rolled the new clock out in phases. The first to get a crack at it will be Nintendo Switch Online members who have paid subscriptions. They must log into their Switch account to put it in their cart. It’s also available at the New York City My Nintendo Store. The clock is sold only by Nintendo, either online or in their flagship store, but will be available in early 2025 at other retailers.

It works at the bedside and stops once a sleepy gamer has gotten out of bed. It will go off again if it detects movement back into bed within an hour of the initial alarm. There is no ordinary snooze button for this extraordinary alarm. Still, it will keep alerting, gradually increasing in volume and intensity until it’s stopped manually or the user leaves the bed.

IT KNOWS

Alarmo has a Santa-like quality since it knows when you are sleeping and when you’re awake. Like any video game, the technology is front and center. It’s equipped with motion sensors and WiFi, so along with welcoming the day with game sounds and characters, it can track sleep patterns. As a user wakes up, the animations and sounds appearing on the 2.8-inch LED screen are customized to their yawns and stretches. The device can only track one person in a bed of any size.

WAKE UP YOUR WAY

Users can choose their characters and game sound clips, and since it connects to their Switch accounts, players can download new games and animations as they are introduced. The company plans to add clips and animations from Mario Kart 8 and Animal Crossing: New Horizons in future updates, and it’s likely that as more users get them, more content will be added.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

When any new game or gadget launches, collectors want to be early adopters. For now, Nintendo is limiting clock sales to one per customer to avoid bulk buying and reselling on the secondary market. However, a quick search of eBay shows many of the units selling for well over the store price of $99.99.

Alarmo is not the first alarm clock Nintendo has released. Vintage models of Mario, Pikachu, and N64 alarm clocks are still sought after by collectors.

Brenda Kelley Kim lives in the Boston area. She is the author of Sink or Swim: Tales From the Deep End of Everywhere and writes a weekly syndicated column for The Marblehead Weekly News/Essex Media Group. When not writing or walking her snorty pug, Penny, she enjoys yard sales, flea markets, and badminton.

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