Nintendo Alarmo hack can't yet run Doom, but can display picture of a cat

Nintendo's leftfield launch this month of Alarmo, an interactive alarm clock, was something of a surprise.

Less of a surprise is the fact that enterprising electronics fans are now taking it to pieces, and trying to work out how it... ticks.

Alarmo has a relatively robust set of security protocols under the hood, though Wii U reverse engineer GaryOderNichts has gotten far enough to run custom code on the alarm clock via a USB (thanks Nintendo Life) and display... a photo of a cat.

Getting to this stage looks (relatively) straightforward - there's no taking Alarmo to pieces needed for this. (And indeed, he did previously take Alarmo to pieces to try and make more progress that way.)

There's no practical use to any of this at the moment, but work by Gary and others is continuing. What games would you like to see working on Alarmo's 2.8-inch LCD screen? With two buttons and a rotational dial, I reckon Tetris might work. And you wouldn't even have to leave bed!

Nintendo Alarmo is currently available only to Nintendo Switch Online members via the My Nintendo Store, priced £90/$99. The gizmo will receive a wider release beginning "mid-January 2025" - helping fill the gap in Nintendo's launch schedule before Switch 2.