Hot on the heels of Nintendo’s surprise announcement and release of Alarmo comes its first update and accompanying patch notes. Yes, we are now in the era of live service alarm clocks.
Yesterday, October 9, Nintendo did not announce the Switch 2, as so many fans were expecting, but instead revealed the $99.99 Alarmo, which is designed to help you wake up “in one of the playful worlds from Nintendo.” Fans were able to buy one straight away from Nintendo’s New York store, which means Bowser is already nagging some to get out of bed.
Alarmo features motion sensor technology that responds to your movements, letting you snooze your alarm with motion alone and stop it by getting out of bed. You can pick from 35 scenes inspired by five Nintendo titles – Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 3, Pikmin 4, and Ring Fit Adventure – then set a time and let Alarmo do its work.
Nintendo said it plans to update Alarmo with scenes from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons for free when they become available, but it’s gone ahead and released a day-one system update which brings Alarmo up to version 2.0.0.
So, what does Alarmo’s first update do? It adds Moderate Mode as a new mode option, Movement Records as a new Records feature, lets you set the clock’s distance to 50cm max for King/Super King size beds, and that old Nintendo update chestnut: “general system stability improvements to enhance the user’s experience.” Not even Alarmo is safe from the tyranny of General System Stability.
Here are the very first Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo patch notes (Ver. 2.0.0 released October 9, 2024)
- Added Moderate Mode as a new mode option.
- Added Movement Records as a new Records feature.
- This data will automatically display in Records if you go to bed within your set bedtime.
- You can set this to On or Off in the Records menu on the clock.
- The clock’s distance from the bed can now be set to 50cm max for King/Super King size beds.
- When a sensor zone check is run, an estimated position of movement will now be displayed.
- General system stability improvements to enhance the user’s experience.
(You will receive a notification if a system update is available. Press the Notification Button when the envelope icon is displayed on the clock screen to see recent notifications and follow the steps shown to perform a system update.)
Alongside the release of Alarmo, Nintendo published a deep-dive into the making of its shock new hardware and explained why it avoided adding game-like elements to the device. It turns out Nintendo considered adding game-like elements but ultimately decided against it because the company didn’t want to encourage users to, for example, wake up early or just not wake up at all.
IGN also has a story on Alarmo’s fascinating connection to late Nintendo President Satoru Iwata.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.