Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo has motion trackers and only turns off when you actually get up

Nintendo has finally announced its latest piece of hardware - but it's not the highly anticipated Switch 2. Instead, the relentlessly playful company has unveiled the Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo, an interactive alarm clock that not only wakes you up with classic game sounds but uses motion sensors to track your sleep.

At a glance, Alarmo looks like a standard branded alarm clock. You can set the theme to one of 35 scenes from five games - Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 3, Pikmin 4 and Ring Fit Adventure - and that will change the look of the display, the characters that run and dance across the screen, and the sounds that play when the alarm goes off. If you link your existing Nintendo Account to the device, you can also download extra scenes from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

If you have trouble getting up in the mornings, you can set it to Steady Mode, which will get more intense until you finally get out of bed. It sounds like other characters will also show up at different times, so you might start off with a gentle "Let's-a go" from Mario, but laze around too long and he'll call Bowser for backup.

It's not just for getting up though. During the day the Alarmo will also play hourly chimes based on the game you set it to, and at night can play chill music and sounds to help you fall asleep.

But here's that creative Nintendo twist: it's not just an alarm you snooze or turn off with buttons (although you can set it to that mode if you like). Instead, this thing has motion sensors in the front that will track your body movements, and only turn off once it sees you actually get out of bed. If you resist, it'll play game sounds with your every movement in bed - so a stretch sounds like collecting coins, splatting squids or plucking Pikmin.

This motion-sensing ability can also be put to more practical use than annoying you into getting up. Overnight, Alarmo can monitor how much you move around in your sleep, providing some sleep tracking data that might bolster that from your watch. You can then check that data in the Records screen.

Of course, there's something a little unnerving about having a family-focused video game company watching your every movement in bed, but Nintendo insists that the data never leaves the clock itself. Still, it might give you some peace of mind to turn it to face the wall during certain uh ... single player or co-op games.

The Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo will be available in early 2025 for US$99.99, although American and Canadian Nintendo Switch Online members can buy one on the My Nintendo Store already. It's also available now from the Nintendo New York store.