LEGO Says Its “Smart Brick” Is an Added Layer That’s Here to Stay, but I’m Not Convinced
It would be an understatement to say that LEGO was a part of my childhood, because it actually had a massive impact on me as a person, on my career, and on my creativity in general. One of my favorite pictures of me as a child was taken in the first home I’ve ever known, in Italy, and it’s me concentrating on building a LEGO model I had received as a gift. Growing up, I had this massive drawer where you would normally put clothes, but instead, it was all LEGO pieces. I would sit on the ground, create my own characters and stories, sometimes full-fledged scenes, and just let my imagination run wild and free. This is just one of the reasons why I don’t really like LEGO’s newest initiative — Smart Bricks.
Just days ago, LEGO officially revealed Smart Bricks, a new so-called layer of the products the Danish toymaker brand is going to make moving forward. If you’re wondering what exactly a Smart Brick is, the answer is that it’s a new element that’s meant to improve the potential of playing with LEGO, as well as adding a way to increase the amount and quality of interactions with both bricks and Minifigures with the use of light and sound. The concept is nice, and I’m sure my 10-year-old self would have loved some cool self-lighting bricks to give even more action and drama to the scene she came up with, and yet, I can’t help but think Smart Bricks are not it.
LEGO Smart Brick Features at a Glance
- LEGO Smart Bricks have sensors capable of detecting motion, position, and distance
- LEGO Smart Play builds can respond to movement and how one plays with LEGO sets and Minifigures
- Smart Bricks are 2×4 LEGO bricks equipped with a custom-made chip, sensors, accelerometers, light sensing, a sound sensor, and a miniature speaker
- Smart Play builds are meant to expand on the possibilities of physical play with sound and light responses to certain behaviors and actions
- Tags can help Smart Bricks perform certain sound and light responses more easily, customizing play
Every LEGO Set Rumored and Confirmed for 2026 (& How Much Damage They’ll Do to Your Finances)
LEGO is about to release multiple new waves of sets for its big series as well as new ones, and here is everything you should know ahead of 2026.
The Good, The Bad, and The Potentially Ugly About LEGO Smart Bricks
It’s not all doom and gloom about LEGO’s Smart Bricks, and I do believe there’s merit to the idea; it’s more that I’m not convinced about the execution and the intended use and production scale. Since this is meant to be on par with the brick and Minifigures, it’s certainly going to be the next big thing at LEGO, no matter what.
If 200 sets are released each year, give or take, you should probably expect at least 30–50 Smart Play builds among them, which is pretty significant. For example, all LEGO Pokemon sets in 2026 will have Smart Bricks or be compatible with Smart Bricks, and that’s over 15 sets already.
Here are what I believe could be the pros and cons, the good and bad of the Smart Play initiative:
- Adding interactivity to LEGO builds is a worthwhile goal, but the execution matters, and this type of interactivity may be too invasive.
- The Smart Brick’s sound and light sensors are technically impressive, yet underwhelming in practice, as the audio output from the speaker inside the plastic brick feels muffled.
- Light, color, movement, and position detection add complexity without meaningfully improving play.
-
Pre-programmed reactions can be neat in certain scenarios, but risk replacing imagination with instruction, and multiple play experts already agree about this.
- As discussed with the BBC, Josh Golin, executive director of the children’s wellbeing group Fairplay, says that “[…] Children’s Lego creations already do move and make noises through the power of children’s imaginations.”
- Andrew Manches, professor of children and technology at the University of Edinburgh, UK, said that the power of LEGO is “The freedom to create, re-create, and adapt simple blocks into endless stories powered by children’s imagination.”
- Designing around a sensor-packed brick can be exciting and open new avenues, but it makes elegant, modular LEGO builds harder to achieve.
- The Smart Brick adds cost without clearly enhancing LEGO’s core appeal, potentially making every Smart Play set much more costly than it could be, raising the bar for entry into the hobby.
- Existing solutions like Light My Bricks already bring sets to life in more flexible ways, even if they are not interactive beyond the press of a button.
- Compared to LEGO’s Minifigure analogy from its Smart Brick reveal post, this doesn’t feel foundational—at least not yet, even if this means we will get more Minifigures overall, and Smart Minifigs on top of that.
- The LEGO Smart Bricks need to be charged after only 45 minutes of play time, an issue that may make play potentially frustrating.
Price, in particular, can be a painful topic for LEGO collectors and newcomers. Some of the most expensive LEGO sets in history are inaccessible to a lot of the intended audience, and the brick-building company does still push out $500+ sets each year.
Various cons aside, there are some possible concerns about Smart Bricks. What happens if the Smart Brick does not respond to the child’s actions and behavior the way they expect? Can’t this lead to frustration and anger, in certain scenarios? Can’t this limit the imagination of a child who conceives an idea, but the Smart Brick fails to deliver it, or maybe delivers it differently than what they envisioned? Can’t the LEGO Smart Brick create its own narrative and storytelling and refute all others if it’s set to perform certain specific actions? All this may promote adaptability, which is a great quality, but it’s not what I associate with LEGO, nor what the brand is known for.
Take the LEGO Star Wars Smart Play: Luke’s Red Five X-Wing set as an example, which was used by LEGO itself to promote Smart Play. This 584-piece set includes Smart Minifigures for Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia and also builds for an Imperial turret, a transporter, and a command center, all with interactive features. These are laser sounds, engine sounds, refueling sounds, repair sounds, and various lights. You can’t convince me that this set doesn’t tell a specific story. And while the Smart Bricks enhance it, replay value and creativity may be lost in the process because it’s always the same story with the same subjects and the same sounds, and it creates certain expectations for the possible sounds and stories for all LEGO Star Wars sets in 2026 and beyond.
Why LEGO’s Smart Play Initiative Makes Me Frown
Part of what made LEGO such a great tool in my own infancy was that I was the architect, and I decided what characters would be part of which story, how that story would begin and then unfold, and all the associated details. A Smart Brick equipped with specific sounds and lights or a Smart Play Minifig with a given voice can be great, but they can also be the death knell of imagination. Erase the pursuit of uniqueness. These are the sounds and lights you should expect; no reason to make up any others. So yes, my 10-year-old self would have liked these cool ways to play with LEGO, but she wouldn’t be the person I am today if she had Smart Bricks.
LEGO Earned My Trust Over 30+ Years, and If Any Brand Can Make Smart Bricks Work, It’s LEGO
That said, I have huge faith in LEGO as a brand, which doesn’t come easily on my part because I usually distrust corporations and big names until proven otherwise. I’ve had many beautiful experiences with LEGO over the years, and as I rediscovered my passion for its bricks in adulthood, that part of my childhood came back to me, flooding me with great memories from an otherwise difficult time of my life. So, there is a chance that LEGO manages to prove the value proposition of Smart Bricks and Smart Play sets over time, and my concerns may be proven null and void.
Likewise, there is a chance that LEGO fans who like to partake in MOC (My Own Creation) projects will find value in Smart Bricks and create the most beautiful LEGO builds you’ll ever see, or the most clever, or the most fun. And that’s also part of the beauty of LEGO — to create what your mind envisions with the tools you have at your disposal, which is the epitome of creativity and using your imagination.
Whether the Smart Play initiative goes well or backfires remains to be seen, but for now, I hope the 2026 LEGO Pokemon sets will blow me away, as it’s possibly the single best collaboration I could think of based on what I love. For now, though, I’ll remain cautious about Smart Bricks, hoping to be proven wrong.