Has Nintendo found a better way to wake up? A review of Alarmo

No one has ever applauded me for getting out of bed before.

But for the last week and a half a tiny, cheery red machine has been rewarding me with a fanfare when I decide to rise. Its digital screen explodes with animations of parade-like confetti, and my first stretch of the morning is greeted with my own personal cheering section.

This is life with Nintendo’s Alarmo, a new alarm clock that’s part nostalgic love letter to the worlds of “Super Mario Bros.” and “The Legend of Zelda,” and part modern sleep-tracking device. As someone who has long suffered from insomnia and who feels energized when there are bits of whimsy in my day, I wondered: Has Nintendo just discovered a better way to wake up?

I’ve found that the idea of greeting the morning with an ovation is just the right amount of silly for my work-from-home and often monotonous single life. But Alarmo knows a few other tricks. Although it lacks some of the accouterments of fancier sleep devices — Alarmo isn’t promising, for instance, to track sleep cycles to wake you up at the opportune time — it manages to take a broad yet colorful approach to crafting stronger sleep habits.

Nintendo’s Alarmo uses light animations and game-like sounds to help us wake up.

(Nintendo of America)

Alarmo, despite its toy-like demeanor and images of Mario sleeping or “Zelda’s” Link relaxing at a campfire, is ultimately a luxury item. Surprise-released by Nintendo earlier this fall for $100, its aim is arguably to resurrect a device of yesteryear. In an era of smartphones, fitness tracking watches and always-listening speakers, there’s no shortage of contraptions to wake us up via an assortment of sounds.

But so few interject a sense of play into our sleep habits.

Play is a de-stressor, and invites openness and vulnerability — so I don’t mind that Alarmo’s circular body with an orb-like button on top looks like a child’s plaything (I will understand if your approach to home decor leans more coastal or Midcentury Modern than Nintendo). Yet what’s surprised me are the ways in which Alarmo has begun to train me.

Opinions from sleep experts vary on the use of alarm clocks. Stanford’s Rafael Pelayo, a clinical professor at the university’s Sleep Medicine division, says ideally we would wake up naturally. “You should wake up feeling rested. You should wake up feeling refreshed. You should not wake up feeling tired … If you wake up tired, something is wrong.”

But the realities of modern life — classes, work, children, pets, etc. — often necessitate the use of some sort of wake-up alert. And rather than stress about getting to bed at the same hour every night, which often proves impossible, depending on professional or social engagements, there’s an argument to be made that we should instead focus on getting up.

Ravi S. Aysola, an associate clinical professor of medicine at UCLA Health, says establishing a consistency with our body’s internal clocks — our circadian rhythm — is key to creating positive sleep habits.

“The area that I generally tell people to establish structure is by wake-up time,” Aysola says. “People often talk about bedtime being at a certain time, but the reality is we cannot force ourselves to sleep without using some external means. Sleep happens on its own. We can force ourselves to wake up, so if we’re having issues with insomnia or maintaining a consistent schedule, the time to focus on is wake-up time.”

A red clock with a screen sitting beside a bed.

Enter the alarm clock.

Alarmo, to be sure, isn’t for everyone. Those interested in, say, an alarm clock based more on mimicking natural light, or in the market for a sleep tracker that attempts to capture our various sleep stages, would need a more complex device. Alarmo prides itself on simplicity. It does, via its motion-monitoring abilities, tell us how many hours we are spending in bed, and also informs on how long, generally, it takes us to get up. But it takes a wide view to sleep tracking.

And yet some of these tools have been a revelation for me. Like many of us, I have struggled with anxiety or depression, and am prone to plopping in bed when feeling overwhelmed or unable to focus. This, of course, doesn’t help my insomnia, as many a researcher will tell me that I’m training my body to not sleep while in bed. I also have a terrible habit of returning to bed shortly after waking to rest for a bit more before starting the workday. This is another impediment to routine.

“That’s an absolute no,” Aysola says. “People say, ‘I get out of bed and have breakfast and I’m still tired so I get back in bed.’ You can’t do that. If it was really a terrible night, make it at least till early afternoon and set an alarm again for how long you want to nap — typically 30 or 60 minutes.”

Alarmo has helped me avoid some of these patterns. In my early usage, I’ve focused on images and sounds from the worlds of “Super Mario Bros.” and “The Legend of Zelda,” as these are the franchises I am most attached to (other options include “Splatoon” and “Pikmin,” with more promised via dowloadable updates at a later date). Waking up to the sounds of Princess Peach giggling or Zelda softly cooing “wake up,” is, yes, odd, but I appreciate the burst of frivolity before I start worrying about my to-do list.

And Alarmo in its default mode is designed to get you moving. If I want to quiet Princess Peach, I need to start waving my arms. She’ll simmer down, but only for about five minutes. Within 20 minutes, Alarmo gets aggressive. Mario antagonist Bowser arrives on the screen, and the clock gets louder, the sounds no longer soothing. Rathan than shut it off, I generally opt to just get up, behavior the researchers I spoke to encourage.

“Get out of bed,” Aysola says. “If you sleep in or start extending the amount of sleep you get in the morning, that’s going to contribute to throwing you off schedule.”

This is where Alarmo turns into something of a hall monitor. Sneak back into bed within an hour of waking, and its process begins anew. And sure, Bowser is no match for my ability to turn Alarmo off, but a small deterrent can sometimes be a powerful one. It should be noted, however, that Alarmo isn’t always perfect, as my cat jumping on my bed after I’ve vacated it can reactivate the clock.

Alarmo has also added a bit more structure to my evening routine. One of its strongest features is its wind-down music, 10 minutes of calming sounds designed to get us into a more restful state. For “The Legend of Zelda,” this is soft campfire noises; for the “Super Mario Bros.” franchise, this is space-age ambiance.

Although I wish Alarmo allowed me the option to set this audio for longer than 10 minutes, an ability that will hopefully come in a future update, Alarmo wants to keep us on schedule. You will have to tell Alarmo your bedtime, and as long as you stick to your promise — that is, enter bed after the programmed time — the sleepytime audio will commence. Since this is one of Alarmo’s nicest features — so badly do I want those Link wilderness sounds — I’ve resisted heading to bed out of boredom to play chess on my phone and instead wait till after my designated hour.

Sleep is personal, and although I’ve generally been charmed by Alarmo, it has its shortcomings. For one, the USB-powered device does not come with an AC adapter, so expect an additional purchase if you don’t have one lying around. Alarmo, too, won’t work well if there’s more than one person in the bed. I’m single — perhaps evident by my willingness to interject a fancy toy into my bedtime routine — so this hasn’t been an issue here, but Alarmo’s core features will be of little use to those coupled-up.

And in time, I may come to dislike Princess Peach laughing as I try to wake up, but for now, it’s been putting me in a lighthearted mindset, a reminder that nestled bedside is this goofy alarm clock that just might help me with my insomnia. And that, says Stanford’s Pelayo, shouldn’t be discounted.

“One of the things I tell patients is that tomorrow is not guaranteed to any one of us,” Pelayo says. “That sounds like a morbid thought, but we live in California. There could be an earthquake or a fire at any moment. So when we wake up in the morning, we shouldn’t be upset. ‘Hey, we have one more day.’ It’s a mindset.”

And one more day is one more opportunity to stop Bowser from tormenting me for trying to snooze.