This week, Nintendo shocked the world with its latest hardware announcement. No, it wasn’t the Switch 2; it was an alarm clock.
Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo is perhaps the wackiest product Nintendo has put out in years. It’s a $100 motion-sensing clock that wakes fans up with scenes from different Nintendo games, from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to Ring Fit Adventure. We here at Digital Trends were curious to see more as soon as it was announced, and we didn’t have to wait long. Nintendo quickly sent over an Alarmo to Digital Trends for testing purposes, which has given us a much closer look at the device.
Before even taking it out of the box, the packaging highlights several key features of the Alarmo. It comes preinstalled with five game-themed alarm packs, which feature multiple scenes, but there are 35 alarms in total. Players can only get the rest by linking a Nintendo account. It also notes that the alarm will get louder the longer you stay in bed, but you can move your arms to quiet it down or get out of bed to stop it entirely. It’s compatible with twin to king size beds, but can’t be placed more than 8 inches higher than the bed if you’re planning to use its motion features.
The device itself is classically Nintendo in its design. It features a bright-red, plastic shell that matches Mario’s aesthetic. There are a few slits on the sides that presumably act as speakers, and Nintendo’s logo is plastered on its butt. Black nubs on its underside, as well as a thin rubber strip, help balance it out, but also serve an extra purpose. There’s a USB-C cable on the underside of the device. The legs elevate the clock just enough to make sure a cable can get there and neatly feed out the backside. That’s key, because there doesn’t seem to be an internal battery in the Alarmo. It shuts off the moment I unplug it. The package does come with a USB-C to USB-A cable, but it doesn’t include a power brick.
All in all, it’s a fairly compact gadget. If you were to fill in its rounded design, you’d basically have a perfect 4x4x4 inch cube. I can palm its backside in one hand, and it’s light enough to easily chuck it across the room if you’re an aggressive alarm snoozer (I do not recommend this).
While the Alarmo is motion-controlled, it does have a few buttons on its top. The main one is a big knob that sits on the clock like a crown. This can be pressed in to click, which opens a sleep records page, and dialed left and right. In the setup, I’d use it to set my time zone, the date, and the current time. When I signed into to my Wi-Fi network, I actually had to dial in my password character by character, which is a bit cumbersome. Thankfully, signing into my Switch account was accomplished via a QR code scan. It also lights up with a variety of pastel colors, making it look a bit like the plastic ball on PlayStation’s old Move controllers. Right next to that, there’s a back button and another with a mail icon. The latter opens the Alarmo’s main menu, where users can set their alarm, download more styles, and more.
The most important piece of the puzzle is the round display, though its shape is a little deceptive. It’s a little tough to tell in photos, but the display itself is actually rectangular. The clocks I’ve toyed with have black edges, which mask the fact that nothing actually appears on the rounded edges. It’s a bit of an odd design decision, but I get the sense that Nintendo was aiming to keep its price tag low. This isn’t a high-end screen by any means; it’s fairly low-resolution, not too dissimilar from Nintendo’s recent Game and Watch revivals.
I still have plenty of testing to do. I’m skeptical of how well its motion sensor works based on a tricky setup, but it’s a charming little device that seems great for kids. Stay tuned to find out if its gamified alarm system can get me into some healthier morning habits.
Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo will widely launch in 2025, but Nintendo Switch Online members can purchase it early right now.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.