It’s been almost a year since our review of the Nintendo Alarmo, which, if math is anything to go by, means the Nintendo Alarmo is now 2 years old. Where does that put us? What’s changed in that year? Is it more worth it now than it was when it was released? Most importantly, has it seen its last updates?
Before The Console Came The Clock
Nintendo Alarmo released exclusively on Nintendo Stores and Tier One Nintendo Switch Online (NSO) users on October 10th, 2024, coming to market as a baffling swing for the company while everyone was waiting with bated breath for news on the Nintendo Switch 2.
At a steep $100, it was pitched more as a novelty digital clock than anything serious, which, in my opinion, served the Alarmo well. It’s truly a charming little piece of hardware; most of the magic is in a 24 GHz mmWave presence sensor that detects motion on your bed while you’re asleep or waking up.
The device uses that sensor to play sound effects based on how much you contort while waking up, from the sounds of Pikmin dying in a watery grave to roughly 8 car horns blaring at you while a Toad screams for their life; it’s a pretty sweet gig.
During my year 1 review, one of my biggest complaints about the Nintendo Alarmo was its limited selection of alarms. Go figure. More specifically, the user’s ability to choose which alarms you like, seeing as the Alarmo hit the market with a measly 5 games to pull alarms from.
While they were all from popular Switch titles like Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, Splatoon 3, and Pikmin 4, there was a black sheep in the bunch; whether added as a joke or a perfectly misguided interpretation of the Switch’s Mount Rushmore, Ring Fit Adventure was the last of the original 5 alarms. Given the Nintendo Alarmo’s demographic is someone who most likely prefers to have their Alarmo shuffle between all available alarms (like myself- I mean- I paid for all the alarms after all), this left users who had to suck it up every time they woke up to an undesirable alarm, with no favorites system in sight.
I Made A Pie Chart to Show How I was Being Harassed by 1985’s Super Mario Bros.
Consequently, in my coverage, recorded in late October 2025, I compiled a pie chart to see how varied my alarms were in a period of 2 months. I kept my Alarmo on the ‘shuffle all’ mode, as I always do, and did the math.
Leaving out the nuance of how frequently the same game would appear multiple days in a row, in my video I concluded alarms from games I liked, such as Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Splatoon 3, Pikmin 4, and Animal Crossing made up about 55% of the total alarms. Unfortunately, the games I didn’t prefer, such as Super Mario Bros., Ring Fit Adventure, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, appeared a total of 45% of the time during the two months, despite only adding up to 3 out of the 9 games available on the clock, much to my frustration.
With all of that being said, the conclusion to my review was positive: I enjoyed the creativity, the execution, and while I disagreed with the inclusion of some games, the quality of certain alarms, and the confusing internal logic of what games are chosen (Super Mario Bros. to this day being the only non-Switch game on the clock), Nintendo seemingly showed no sign of stopping support for their silly little Mario clock. Also, my one-year-old niece loves the device, and she doesn’t even know what a Mario is, and I can learn to respect that, just as I’ve learned to get used to waking up to the sounds of Dodo Airlines.
The Feature That Changes The Nintendo Alarmo Forever
Two years later, the Alarmo now boasts a whopping 11 different games, with 74 additional alarms split across the different titles. Super Mario Wonder was added 5 months after my review on March 26th, 2026, with the most recent game to be added being none other than Donkey Kong Bananza on June 10th, 2026. But here’s the most important new feature that completely revolutionized the Alarmo.
On May 19th, 2026, Nintendo dropped version 4.0.0, which finally addressed my biggest problem with the clock. Now, a little less than two years later, the Nintendo Alarmo lets you use a new “Randomise Favorites” feature that randomises your alarm scene each day from a list of scenes you’ve favorited. That has completely changed the way I use my Alarmo.
Without further ado, here’s my personal list of favorites, including the scenes I didn’t want to hear, and then, just for old times’ sake, let’s do some more math.
Super Mario Odyssey
- Fossil Falls – Chomp Through the Rocks
Meeting Princess Peach in the Castle- Spinning Athletics as Yoshi
Speaking with the Bubblaine Sphynx- Exploring Lake Lamode
- Hammer Bros. on Mount Volbono
- The New Donk City Festival (with Jump Up, Superstar)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- Awakening to Adventure (opening sequence)
- Bokoblin Battle
- Stasis Trial
- Searching for Korok Seeds
Great Fairy Fountain- Stone Talus Battle
- Glider Course Minigame
Splatoon 3
- Clickbait – C-Side – Splattershot SFX
- Sandy Side Up – Front Roe
- Aquasonic – H2Whoa
- Slopping Spree – Chirpy Chips
- Fins in the Air – Deep Cut – Heavy Splatling SFX
- Salmon Run – Boss Salmonid
- Story Mode: the Final
Pikmin 4
- Collecting Treasure
Rushing the BulborbFacing the FIery BlowhogBreaking through the Electric GateRescue Drowning PikminProtecting the Lumiknoll- Dancing under Groovy Long Legs
Ring Fit Adventure
Meadow Run,First Fit Battle! (with masculine Ring voice)Fierce FIght in the T…Cross the River with a Raft!Final Battle against t…A Snowy, Soaring Vacation!Nighttime Battle Gym
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
- Mario Kart Stadium
Twisted Mansion- Dolphin Shoals
- Electrodrome
- Cloudtop Cruise
Bowser’s Castle- Rainbow Road
Super Mario Bros.
GroundUndergroundUnderwaterBowser Battle
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Group Stretching- Going Places with Dodo Airlines
- Morning Coffee
- Fishing Tourney Fun
- Dreaming of K.K. Slider
- Grand Opening Ceremony
- Rescue Service
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
- Welcome to the New World!
- Rescue Waddle Dees in Natural Plains
- Stir Up a Wind at Everbay Coast
- Water Balloon at Wondaria Remains
- Waddle Dee Town and Kirby’s House
Rescue Starries with Spring MouthTwinkling Skating Rink
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
- Welcome to the Flower Kingdom!
- Piranha Plants on Parade
- Pokipede Pass
- The Midway Trial: Hop to It
- Ninji Jump Party
Dragon BoneyardRun, Hide! Phanto Tag
Donkey Kong Bananza
- Meeting the Kong Elder in the Lagoon Layer
- Running Over Ice in the Freezer Layer
- Flying Over the Forest Layer
- Inhaling Gold in the Tempest Layer
- Scaling the Tower in the Radiance Layer
- Nostalgia Country
- Emerald Rush
So, as I did a year ago, let’s calculate the percentages of games using two months (August 16th to October 16th) of data, and put it on a pretty pie chart.
With all that data laid out, I’m surprised by how evenly it gets split up, again. Now that I don’t have any scenes I’d consider “bad,” I’m still shocked that even though titles like Super Mario Odyssey and Pikmin 4 have fewer than the usual 7 scenes, they still got played an equal or greater amount than titles that I chose to keep the original 7 of, like Splatoon 3, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. That being said, Nintendo Alarmo’s shuffle feature tends to bunch titles together, as throughout the two months, titles like Super Mario Odyssey and Pikmin 4 would play two or even three days in a row, which is also what convinced me Donkey Kong Bananza would dominate the graph, but I think there’s a much worse reason I’ve had bananas on the brain.
The Alarmo Wakes You Up Fine, But Struggles Putting You To Sleep
While the Nintendo Alarmo seems to get semi-frequent updates, usually 3-6 months apart, which means we could be due a new alarm any day now (my votes on the new Fire Emblem: Fortunes Weave). The Nintendo Alarmo doesn’t just wake you up; it also (or at least it attempts to) lull you to sleep with ‘sleepy sounds’. These have been wildly inconsistent in quality, with some of the best being inspired and fun, like Super Mario Odyssey’s Moon theme, The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild’s nighttime ambience, and Pikmin 4’s end-of-day theme, and some fairly unoriginal ones, like Super Mario Wonder’s underground swamp remix of Pipe-Rock Plateau.
Part of the issue can be that the Alarmo only plays its sleepy sounds for around 20 minutes; some of Nintendo Alarmo’s choice sounds will have you covering your head with a pillow. Titles like the most recent Donkey Kong Bananza use the game’s unique sleep dialogue for when you sleep in a getaway bed. Is it cute in Donkey Kong Bananza? Maybe, I haven’t grabbed myself a copy. Is it really annoying and a little disturbing to have to listen to a 13-year-old talk to you about bananas every time you collapse into bed after a long day of work? I’ll let you decide, but personally, I should never be put in a situation where I have to hear a 13-year-old’s opinion on anything.
The worst (or best) part is that she cycles through dialogue, meaning A, you’ll be hearing her talk about missing DK one night, and talk about counting sheep (or the Donkey Kong equivalent) the next, and B, the Alarmo was fully capable of dynamic sleepy sound tracks the entire time, and I’ll be expecting a dynamic Zelda, Mario, and Animal Crossing sleepy sound any day now.
At The End (And Beginning) Of The Day, It’s Still My Favorite Alarm Clock
Now minds, especially the greatest ones, can learn to change. That’s why, given the choice, I decided to keep all but a few Mario Kart 8 Deluxe scenes, but I remind you the entire purpose of favorites is to pick the ones you like, and being able to pick and choose which scenes from which games has completely fixed my perspective on the Nintendo Alarmo. I also now use it without its trademark feature, the motion sensor, since I think by now, no alarm could convince me to get out of bed instead of simply turning off the alarm.
Combined with the clock’s hourly charms, has genuinely turned the Nintendo Alarmo into what I’d consider one of Nintendo’s most charming little footnotes during the 8th and 9th generations. When Nintendo stops supporting it, I think they’ll have left the Alarmo better than they started, and I encourage anyone looking to liven up their mornings with a little Nintendo charm to add this to their nightstand. I guess the jury’s still out on the talking flower.
