While the Alarmo is round and an eye-catching red, one “early” prototype Nintendo showed in an “Ask the Developer” interview had a more boxy shape and came in gray. This prototype did have an interesting feature in its dot matrix LED display (similar to the now-discontinued Echo Dot with Clock), but Nintendo ultimately went in a different direction because “we felt that this display system wouldn’t be able to communicate the instructions sufficiently,” says Nintendo’s Yosuke Tamori, who oversaw the development of the Alarmo. “It was especially difficult to explain the product’s new features, such as the motion sensor,” he says.