Nintendo's mysterious FCC device filing has nothing to do with Switch 2

Remember the mysterious Nintendo device that popped up on the FCC database? False alarm--it has nothing to do with Nintendo's next-gen Switch 2 console.

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Back in late September, Nintendo submitted a new device (CLO-001) for the FCC to test out. It was believed to be some sort of strange peripheral, possibly for the Switch 2. After all, the mysterious device had motion tracking via a 24GHz mmWave sensor. What else could it be, if not some sort of JoyCon-like controller?

Now the device has been revealed, and it's something that no one expected. It's actually an interactive alarm clock.

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Today, Nintendo announced Alarmo, a $100 alarm clock that plays sounds from Nintendo games like Pikmin 4, Super Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 3, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and even Ring Fit Adventure.

Alarmo is Wi-Fi enabled, so it can download new sounds and music directly from the internet. It also comes with built-in motion sensors that track your movements once an alarm has gone off, and can play contextual sounds based on your movements. For example, if you're tossing and turning once the Mario Odyssey alarm goes off, Alarmo will play the distinctive coin sounds from the Mario games to help wake you up.

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"Alarmo detects movement with its motion sensor and responds to your actions with sounds."

That explains the mmWave sensor, and the filings also showed that the device--the Alarmo--had to be plugged in at all times. There's no internal battery inside Nintendo's alarm clock.

So there we have it, the mystery has been solved, and in pure Nintendo fashion, the company has once again subverted our best guesses.

The reality is that no one truly knows what Nintendo is up to...but there certainly are a multitude of rumors around the next-gen Switch 2 console.