“Not Even a Power Button” — Lego’s Smart Brick Could Breathe New Life Into Popular Sets

Lego are serious business. Not just for kids who love assembling the colorful, often licensed, themed sets or building their own creations with them, but for resellers. In fact, some unopened Lego products have higher return rates than gold and can appreciate significantly over time.

As of 2023, Statista reported that the brand's value was estimated at a whopping $13 billion. And the Danish company just released a new product that's captivating Lego enthusiasts: the Smart Brick. But what is it?

The new toy has been introduced as part of Lego's Smart Play system, which the brand states is its "most revolutionary innovation since the creation of the minifigure in 1978." Furthermore, these pieces are designed to "respond ... precisely to how kids play. In other words, when you play, the Smart Brick plays back," the company's website states.

No, that doesn't mean Lego pieces will laugh at parents when they step on a brick in the middle of the night. Nor will the Lego cry out in agony when a bullying sibling destroys their little brother or sister's Lego creation after hours of painstaking work.

These smart bricks are equipped with "built-in accelerometer[s]" that help the toys to recognize how they're being maneuvered. In a video demonstration published to the Beyond the Brick YouTube channel, someone takes a smart brick to a fully assembled Lego X-Wing fighter jet from Star Wars.

Next, they fasten the brick to the toy horizontally and lift the toy up into the air to begin playing with it as if it's flying. As the YouTuber does so, the smart brick begins to emit dynamic noises to match the movement of their play style. He even attempts to do a barrel roll, and the accelerometer clocks this movement, changing up the sound effect in the process.

The person on camera is giddy with excitement as they test out other motions, and the Smart Brick starts making noises as if the fighter ship is firing lasers. In the same clip, the demonstrators reveal how the Smart Brick interacts with Lego's other Smart Play products: Smart Tags and Smart Minifigures.

The tags are small red tiles that can be placed on different Lego pieces and Minifigures, as evinced by the R2D2 and Luke Skywalker minifigures inside the X-Wing. First, the Smart Play tester places Luke Skywalker inside the toy, and the Smart Brick instantly recognizes the Jedi, "Hello Luke," it states.

Following this, his robot sidekick is placed behind him, and once it's situated inside the jet, the character's familiar beeps echo from the Smart Brick. The Lego rep took it a step further and began preparing for an "epic battle" in the video, but grabbed a Tie Fighter and placed a Darth Vader minifigure inside of it.

The TIE fighter also had a Smart Brick placed inside of it, which caused the Star Wars villain's theme song to play upon doing so. Afterwards, the two held up their toys opposite of each other and pantomimed an aerial battle between Vader and Luke.

Both of the fighter jets began emitting laser fire noises, and the respective toys began to light up in addition to the noises, as if they were registering being hit.

These appeals to different senses open up a wide array of play possibilities for Lego fans. Engadget writes that the Smart Brick's chip comes with a "4.1mm ASIC chip" along with integrated copper coils that "can sense distance, direction, and orientation of other Smart Bricks" near it.

These bricks can also read the digital ID tags embedded on Smart Tags and Smart minifigures, which produce a variety of different sounds and noises. Lego says that they're packed with internal batteries that can last through years of inactivity. And they can be recharged utilizing a wireless charging pad.