Lego announces Smart Brick, the ‘most significant evolution’ in 50 years

On March 1st, 2026, The Lego Group will statesman trading the astir eager ceramic it’s ever made: a mini machine that fits wholly wrong a classical 2x4 Lego brick. When it detects NFC-equipped smart tags nearby, embedded wrong caller Lego tiles and caller Lego minifigures, aliases erstwhile it sees different Smart Bricks, the institution claims it will make full Lego sets travel to life — starting pinch the humming lightsabers, roaring engines, light-up blasters, and the euphony of Lego Star Wars.

These “Smart Bricks” and “Smart Play” initiatives, conscionable announced astatine CES 2026, aren’t for illustration the huge Lego Mario toys that required 2 AAA batteries and mostly only activate erstwhile their bottom-mounted cameras detected colour aliases barcodes. They’re wirelessly charged, pinch a pad that tin complaint aggregate bricks astatine a time, and a artillery that “will still execute aft years of inactivity.”

They person ray and sound, ray sensors, inertial sensors to observe movement, tilt, and gestures, and they shape a Bluetooth mesh web pinch different Smart Bricks, truthful they’re alert of each other’s position and predisposition — truthful Lego Star Wars ships and figures tin do battle, for example, aliases truthful The Imperial March plays erstwhile you beryllium Emperor Palpatine connected his throne. When built into Lego cars, the bricks could observe which 1 crosses a decorativeness statement first, aliases alteration from motor noises to crashing sound effects if the conveyance is flipped over. The machine wrong is simply a civilization ASIC that is smaller than a azygous Lego stud and is firmware updatable via a smartphone app.

The bricks besides person a microphone, 1 that Lego Group spokesperson Jessica Benson explains is utilized arsenic a virtual fastener alternatively than signaling anything. “I’ve seen it wherever you rustle connected it, if you put it connected a day cake, for instance, it makes things happen. It’s very overmuch utilized arsenic different sensor point, it’s not signaling immoderate details, it’s conscionable picking up those inputs that are to do pinch sound and reacting successful existent clip to what the kids are doing pinch it.”

There’s besides nary AI successful this merchandise astatine all, Benson confirms, and nary camera. (Without a camera to scan barcodes, they’re not compatible pinch Lego Mario tiles.)

The first sets shipping March 1st will each beryllium Lego Star Wars:

At astir 4 x 4 x 5.5 inches (10 x 11 x 15cm) for the TIE Fighter and 2 x 8.5 x 7.5 (6 x 22 x 19cm) for the X-Wing including small outpost buildings, these are a bully spot smaller than the “normal minifig scale” Lego Star Wars ships we’ve gotten successful the past — the Smart Bricks adhd to the cost, arsenic you’d expect.

If each you’re getting for that money is replacing the imaginative laser and humming sounds kids tin already make pinch their ain mouths, that’d beryllium 1 point — but there’s capable tech successful present that they could perchance beryllium overmuch more. Lego spokesperson Jack Rankin suggests the tags tin lead to much imaginative forms of mix-and-match play, excessively — erstwhile kids tried an early smart tag that quacked for illustration a duck and mixed that pinch a chopper set, they enjoyed having a duck helicopter, too.

It’s highly improbable they’ll extremity astatine a fewer Lego Star Wars sets. The Lego Group is calling the caller machine bricks “the astir important improvement successful the Lego System-in-Play since the preamble of the Lego Minifigure successful 1978,” and location are unconfirmed rumors that the upcoming Lego Pokémon sets will beryllium the adjacent to get them. The institution already softly piloted them successful 2024 successful a Lego City set, too.

“Lego Smart Play will proceed to grow done caller updates, launches and technology,” the institution writes.