Spy Alarm

Genre: Application

Players: 1

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Review:

Spy Alarm, released on Nintendo Switch in 2021 is an Application that uses the Nintendo Switch right Joy-Con’s infrared camera as a poor-man’s security device, responding when it detects movement by playing an alarm sound. This software can be told to respond with one of four sounds, and keeps a running tally of how many times it detected movement and when that happened relative to when the software was activated.

It’s a cool idea, but naturally given the limitations of the Nintendo Switch, this software’s functionality will be limited. The software naturally only works with the right Joy-Con, not the left and not with Pro controllers, and the Joy-Con will still need to be in range of the Nintendo Switch. Players can adjust the sensitivity of the Joy-Con’s infrared camera to four settings, but of course that camera can only do so much.

However, even within the limitations of the Nintendo Switch, I can’t help but feel like this software misses out on multiple opportunities to be better at what it does. There’s no option to separately detect multiple right Joy-Cons, no ability to use it as a silent alarm, no option to have detections recorded based on a real-time clock, no ability to see the image the infrared camera detects (this is possible – Nintendo LABO does this), no option within the software itself to keep the Nintendo Switch from automatically going to sleep, and no option to have notifications sent to your phone or E-Mail.

In other words, and I know this will surprise no one… Spy Alarm is really just a novelty, and its usefulness is extremely limited to the point where I highly doubt most who get the software will find any practical use for it. Maybe scaring your cat, I guess? But for $10, I’d say it’s not worth it, and even the regular sale price of $2 is pushing it.

tl;dr – Spy Alarm is an Application that uses your right Joy-Con’s infrared camera to detect movement and play an alarm. It works for what it aims to do, but its functionality is so extremely limited that it couldn’t ever be anything more than a novelty… and not a novelty worth $10.

Grade: C

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