Nintendo’s Alarmo has already been hacked by fans, allowing anyone to upload custom images to its screen. This opens the possibility for all kinds of mischief, depending on how exactly someone wants to be woken up.

The Nintendo Alarmo is a clock that plays Nintendo songs to wake people up, with a sensor that increases the tempo of the music, depending on how much the person in bed is moving.

The Alarmo also shows visuals from games like Super Mario Odyssey or Breath of the Wild.

The Alarmo usually has a limited array of images to show, but one intrepid fan has broken the device wide open. A Twitter/X user named GaryOderNichts demonstrated that it’s possible to use a USB device to make the Alarmo show custom images.

GaryOderNichts explained the methods used further in a blog post, breaking down how it was possible to crack the Alarmo. While the hardware launched early in October, it didn’t take long for fans to be able to access its secrets.

"The debug port also allows loading a payload into memory and executing it, so there's already lots of potential things which can be done here."

With this new information, fans should be able to include images from other Nintendo games in their Alarmo. Thanks to this hack, people who have been cruelly denied an EarthBound or F-Zero alarm clock will finally have their day.

The question now is whether it will be possible to run anything else on the Alarmo? Fans are already joking about getting Doom running on the system, and considering Doom's history, it might actually be possible to slay Cacodemons on an Alarmo in the near future.

​​​​​​In an era when fans are desperate to learn details about the Nintendo Switch 2, the announcement of the Nintendo Alarmo came as something of a shock.

What purpose does an expensive alarm clock serve in a world where most mobile devices (and the Nintendo Switch itself) have alarm apps?

Right now, the Alarmo is only showing pictures of cats, but it’s possible that more incredible things can be done with the hardware. A booming homebrew scene for Nintendo’s alarm clock is the kind of thing that the big N’s most dedicated fans would do.

It's possible to run custom code on the Nintendo Alarmo via USB - without opening it up!
More details in the blog post here: https://t.co/a0YBiwCVpj pic.twitter.com/NWJwHVvZcD

— Gary (@GaryOderNichts) October 30, 2024

Posted: Nov 06, 2024 11:01 am
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://www.dualshockers.com/nintendos-latest-gadget-has-already-been-hacked/