Nintendo Alarmo available now in the UK and it’s not quite as expensive as feared --[Reported by Umva mag]

The latest hardware from Nintendo, that isn’t the Switch 2, is now available in the UK but there are some unwelcome drawbacks.

There may still be no real clue as to when the Nintendo Switch 2 is going to be unveiled but something is definitely going on at the House of Mario at the moment, with a mysterious new online playtest and the reveal of a bizarre interactive alarm clock, called Alarmo.

When it was first announced there was only a US price for Alarmo, of $99.99. That suggested that it would probably cost around £100 in the UK but it’s actually slightly less than that, at £89.99.

It’s available now but only via the official My Nintendo Store and only for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers until ‘mid-January’, after which it will be sold at other stores as a normal product (i.e. it’s not time-limited like the Nintendo mini-consoles).

What does the Nintendo Alarmo do?

Alarmo is… an alarm clock. However, it’s very clearly an evolution of concepts Nintendo was talking about more than a decade ago, starting with the Wii Vitality Sensor and then the Quality of Life (QOL) products that were teased during the Wii U era, but which were never actually released.

The QOL device was meant to ‘monitor your body movements, breathing, and heartbeat as you sleep’ before uploading data to the cloud for analysis. We can only assume this either didn’t work or was too expensive because in contrast all Alarmo does is monitor whether you move at night.

It’s not clear why that’s supposed to be useful but other than playing restful sounds and an hourly chime it’s the only thing Alarmo does that’s not directly related to waking you up.

Alarmo achieves that by playing music from five different games, with Super Mario Odyssey, Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, Splatoon 3, Pikmin 4, and Ring Fit Adventure available at launch and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons being added later as free DLC.

The alarm will gradually increase in intensity if you don’t get up, but the device will also watch your body and make sounds, like picking up coins or shooting a Splatoon paint gun, as you move about in bed.

When you finally get up you not only get a new piece of music played to you, but there’s images from the game you’ve selected and the amount of time it took you to get up is added to what is essentially a high score table.

Where to buy Nintendo Alarmo

Alarmo will be available as a normal Nintendo product from the middle of January (there’s no specific date yet) at unannounced retailers, but you can assume that probably includes at least Amazon.

Until then, it will only be available via the My Nintendo Store and only then if you are a Nintendo Switch Online subscriber, which costs a minimum of £6.99 for three months (although you may be able to get a free trial if you haven’t used one before).

Nintendo are clearly hoping for Alarmo to be a big seller over Christmas so there’s a chance it may sell out, as it’s unclear how many they’ve manufactured and how much stock the UK is getting.

How much is the Nintendo Alarmo? and where can you buy it?

Alarmo costs £89.99 but it does not come with an AC adapter, although it’s implied you can use a USB cable to power it instead. You can use the AC adapter from the Switch or otherwise they’re sold separately for £24.99.

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