Look, I’m a sucker for instant gratification. It’s often one of my favorite things about living in New York City. This morning, , and when the company’s store in Rockefeller Center opened a couple hours later, I walked in and picked one up.
Did I feel a little iffy about paying $108.91 after tax for a plastic alarm clock? You bet. But fortunately, in my field, this counts as a work expense.
(Technically, this product is called Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarmo — but no one is ever going to refer to it that way. It’s Alarmo.) ’s senior entertainment editor Andrew Webster will have a full review of Alarmo coming up, but I wanted to check it out for myself.
Mostly, I was curious about the audio quality. If the speaker in this relatively tiny clock sounds tinny or shrill, that would ruin the whole concept for me. Turns out, you don’t need to worry about that.
I haven’t tried all of Alarmo’s various sounds, but even the theme that plays during the setup process eliminated my worries that it would sound like crap. That setup routine is actually quite lengthy and might prove to be a bit much for a child. You choose the date and time, of course, but you’re also led through configuring the clock’s motion-detection features, which takes a bit of time, and I didn’t see any way of skipping it.
Alarmo’s millimeter-wave presence sensor works with bed sizes ranging from twin to king, and the screen is meant to face the middle of your bed. The display is not a touchscree.
