Alarmo Breath of the Wild
Image: Nintendo Life

Look, it was only a matter of time before people started using the Alarmo for things that aren't sleep or alarm clock related, and GaryOderNichts — who usually works on reverse engineering for the Wii U — has figured out how to run custom code on the clock.

Gary has done this without opening the clock up at all, using just a USB. Now, it's not that simple, of course, but Gary has gone into great detail in a blog post on what's actually inside the Alarmo, and how he managed to get custom code working by collaborating with Spinda, who had already made great strides in hacking the clock.

It's all a bit scientific, but the gist of it is that you need to decrypt the clock's firmware and upload it to an external USB. When the clock tries to search for the file, and subsequently can't find it, you'll be able to load any encrypted firmware binaries into the clock.

We're oversimplifying it massively, so if you're interested in the process, make sure you check out Gary's blog for the whole process. Of course, the best part is that Gary demonstrates the custom code with a picture of a cat on the clock.

Alarmo Custom Code Tweet
Image: @GaryOderNichts

And, naturally, this has opened up a ton of possibilities for the Alarmo. But do you know what people really want to see on it? Doom. Why? Because you can play Doom on anything.

Gary is currently working on getting past the RDP, which involved getting through Secure Access Mode, but at the time of writing, hasn't been able to get past the 2ndloader without the screen blacking out.

We're hoping people come up with custom alarms and other neat things for the Alarmo, but we're also fascinated to see what weird things people can do with the clock. But if you're just after a novelty clock, then you can't really go wrong with the Alarmo, even if it's a bit pricey.

Update: We've added a line to the above story highlighting the contribution of Spinda to this project. Also, Doom is now running on the thing:

Do you want to see Doom on the Alarmo? Of course you do. Let us know in the comments what you think of GaryOderNichts' work.

[source garyodernichts.blogspot.com, via x.com]