Nintendo Alarmo (2024) turns waking up into a game with a radar sensor

Nintendo's project did not begin as an alarm clock. An in-house research effort on radio-wave motion sensors found a sensor that measures distance and speed through reflected waves — no camera, works in the dark, sees through duvets. Because it protects privacy, the team thought it could fit a bedroom, and the stated theme became 'support people during their sleep.' It took years of prototypes before the alarm clock emerged as the product.

The breakthrough was software: programmers built a system that detects roughly where a person lies on the bed from the sensor's distance and angle, so the moment of getting in or out of bed became readable. That unlocked the product's signature idea — an alarm that you snooze with a wave and that stops only when you leave the bed — plus playful touches like sound effects that rise in pitch when you move and a fanfare when you get up.

Developers Tamori (software-side producer, ex-Splatoon) and Akama (hardware director) made cross-department teamwork the story of the project: hardware, system software and application teams worked together, and a stuck development period was broken by a week of free prototyping. The final red round clock was deliberately chosen to look instantly recognizable as an alarm clock, and 35 scenes across five games make each morning feel like entering a game world.