There are lots of modern alarm clocks that pair via Bluetooth to your phone and auto-set the time from the phone’s time. No internet connection or NTP server needed.
The clock could set itself from radio signals: standards-compliant.
The clock could have WiFi or Ethernet and use [S]NTP: standards-compliant.
The clock could have a SIM and use NITZ: standards-compliant.
But BT it is. So now rather than having a dependency on standard or generic resources, it requires a BT pairing with the right kind of phone Ridiculous.
This was my thinking as well, and why I rejected the idea. I'm not installing some rando company's information-harvesting data-selling garbage app on my phone to do something that the clock should do itself.