Further reading
- Hollister, Sean (7 January 2026). "I played with the Lego Smart Brick". The Verge . Archived from the original on 9 January 2026. Retrieved 10 January 2026.
| Developer | The Lego Group |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | The Lego Group |
| Release date | 1 March 2026 |
| Connectivity | BrickNet (Bluetooth-based) |
| Dimensions | 4.1 mm |
| Marketing target | Children |
| Website | Introducing the LEGO® SMART Play™ System! |
The Smart Brick is a product that was unveiled by The Lego Group at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show. It is a Lego brick containing sensors that can react to movement, play sound, light up, and detect the presence of "Smart Minifigures" and "Smart Tags".
In a demo, Lego allowed the product to be used on a birthday cake that could recognise when candles were blown out and react by playing a happy birthday song.
In 2017, Lego formed a group of researchers to examine the possibility of upgrading their bricks to incorporate digital technologies. While creating the Smart Brick, Lego had criteria that the brick must allow children to play with their friends, react to their actions, and to allow the experience to evolve over time to play habits. [1]
While Lego were innovating the Smart Brick, they had an intention to make the technology as invisible as possible. They also set out to create a proprietary application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chip. [1]
The Lego Group have filed 25 patents and had about than 160 workstations for this project. [1]
The Lego Smart Brick was in development for eight years prior to its announcement at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), hundreds of employees worked on the project. [2]
Executives at the Lego group have expressed optimism for the opportunities that integration with digital technologies can bring. [3]
The product will be available in March 2026 via Lego Star Wars sets. [2]
The Smart Brick takes the shape of an ordinary 2x4 Lego brick, allowing for easy integration into the existing Lego system. [4]
Lego says they are creating an integrated platform that combines tags, interactive figures and recognises the existing systems of play with Lego. They also stated that they greatly benefitted from integrated processes such as their supply chain, operations, marketing, technical development. [2] The Smart Brick itself consists of a 4.1 millimetre chip, with features such as an accelerometer, light, microphones, an LED array, a mini speaker and magnetic field sensors. [2] [4] Lego claims that the Smart Brick will use enhanced encryption and privacy controls to protect user data with the microphone only being used to detect sounds rather than sharing them with external sources. [2]
The Smart Brick has an integrated wireless charger. [4] A Neighbourhood Position Management chip can detect distance, orientation and direction between other Smart Bricks. [4]
The Smart Brick was designed with power efficiency and longevity in mind and will use a smartphone for firmware updates. [4]
It will have companion pieces, the Smart Minifigure and Smart Tag. [3] The Smart Minifigure and Tag makes the Smart Brick react to certain elements of the play set. [4] The Smart Tag will take the form of a 2x2 tile. [4]
No setup will be required to use the product. [5]
Lego introduced a new Bluetooth-based communications protocol named BrickNet which allows multiple Smart Bricks to communicate with each other and operate in tandem. [5]
Katriina Heljakka, a researcher of play at the University of Turku in Finland noted security concerns via the internet but also expressed praise that the Smart Brick is addressing her perception that Lego has been focusing too much on adult's play. [2]
Josh Golin, executive director of children's wellbeing group Fairplay said that the Smart Brick could "undermine what was once great about Legos", he goes on to emphasise that children use their imagination to visualise different scenarios instead of the lights, sensors and speakers the Smart Brick has. [3]
Professor of children and technology at the University of Edinburgh Andrew Manches said that "the freedom to create, re-create, and adapt simple blocks into endless stories powered by children's imagination" was an integral part of the lego system. He was glad that the Lego group is trying to integrate digital and physical play products through their Smart Play brand. [3]
