It would be an understatement to say that LEGO was a part of my childhood, because it actually had a huge impact on me as a person, on my career and on my creativity in general. One of my favorite photos 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'd been given as a gift. Growing up, I had this huge box where you would normally put clothes, but instead it was just LEGO pieces. I would sit on the ground, create my own characters and stories, sometimes fully fledged scenes, and just let my imagination run wild. This is just one of the reasons why I don't really like LEGO's latest initiative – Smart Bricks.
Just a few days ago, LEGO officially revealed Smart Bricks, a new so-called layer of the products that the Danish toy brand will make going forward. If you're wondering what exactly a smart brick is, the answer is that it's a new element meant to enhance the potential of playing with LEGO, as well as adding a way to increase the quantity and quality of interactions with both bricks and minifigures using light and sound. The concept is nice, and I'm sure my 10-year-old self would have loved some cool self-lit bricks to add even more action and drama to the scene she came up with, and yet I can't help but think Smart Bricks isn't it.
LEGO smart brick functions at a glance
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LEGO Smart Bricks have sensors that can detect movement, position and distance
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LEGO Smart Play builds can respond to movement and play with LEGO sets and minifigures
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Smart Bricks are 2×4 LEGO bricks equipped with a custom-made chip, sensors, accelerometers, light sensing, a sound sensor and a miniature speaker
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Smart Play builds are intended to extend the possibilities of physical play with sound and light responses to certain behaviors and actions
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Tags can help Smart Bricks perform certain sound and light responses more easily, customize the game
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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 think the idea has merit; it's more that I'm not convinced about the execution and intended use and scale of production. Since this is meant to be on par with the bricks and minifigures, it's definitely going to be the next big thing at LEGO no matter what.
If 200 sets are released every year, give or take, you should probably expect at least 30-50 Smart Play builds among them, which is pretty significant. For example, all LEGOs Pokémon sets in 2026 will have Smart Bricks or be compatible with Smart Bricks, and there are already over 15 sets.
Here are what I think might be the pros and cons, the good and the bad of the Smart Play initiative:
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Adding interactivity to LEGO builds is a worthwhile goal, but execution is important, and this kind of interactivity can be too invasive.
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The Smart Brick's sound and light sensors are technically impressive, yet underwhelming in practice, as the sound from the speaker inside the plastic brick feels muffled.
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Light, color, motion, and position detection add complexity without meaningfully improving gameplay.
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Preprogrammed reactions can be neat in some scenarios, but run the risk of replacing imagination with instruction, and several gaming experts already agree on this.
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As discussed with the BBC, Josh Golin, chief executive of children's welfare group Fairplay, says that “[…] Children's Lego creations already move and sound through the power of children's imaginations.”
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Andrew Manches, professor of children and technology at the University of Edinburgh, UK, said the power of LEGO is “The freedom to create, recreate and adapt simple blocks into endless stories fueled by children's imaginations.”
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Designing around a sensor-packed brick can be exciting and open up new avenues, but it makes elegant, modular LEGO builds more difficult to achieve.
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The Smart Brick increases cost without clearly improving LEGO's core appeal, potentially making each Smart Play set much more expensive than it could be, raising the bar for entry into the hobby.
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Existing solutions like Light My Bricks already bring sets to life in more flexible ways, even if they aren't interactive beyond the touch of a button.
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Compared to LEGO's Minifigure analogy from its Smart Brick reveal post, this doesn't feel basic – at least not yet, although it does mean we'll be getting more Minifigures overall, and Smart Minifigs on top of that.
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LEGO Smart Bricks need to be recharged after only 45 minutes of playtime, a problem that can make the game potentially frustrating.
Price, in particular, can be a sore subject for LEGO collectors and newcomers alike. Some of the most expensive LEGO sets in history are inaccessible to many of their intended audience, and the brick-building company still pushes out $500+ sets every year.
Apart from various disadvantages, there are some possible concerns about Smart Bricks. What if the smart brick doesn't respond to the child's actions and behavior as they expect? Could this not lead to frustration and anger, in some scenarios? Doesn't this limit the imagination of a child who gets an idea, but the smart brick fails to deliver it, or perhaps delivers it differently than they intended? Can't LEGO Smart Kloss create its own story and narrative and disprove all others if it is set to perform certain specific actions? All of this may promote customizability, which is a great quality, but it's not what I associate with LEGO, nor what the brand is known for.
Take LEGO Star Wars Smart Play: Luke's Red Five X-Wing as an example, which was used by LEGO itself to promote Smart Play. This 584-piece set includes clever Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia minifigures and also builds an Imperial Tower, 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 that, replay value and creativity can be lost in the process because it's always the same story with the same motifs and the same sounds, and that creates certain expectations of possible sounds and stories for all LEGOs Star Wars takes place 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 which 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 the imagination. Delete the pursuit of uniqueness. These are the sounds and lights you can expect; no reason to invent someone else. 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 for 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 tend to distrust companies and big names until proven otherwise. I've had many beautiful experiences with LEGO over the years, and when I rediscovered my passion for its bricks as an adult, that part of my childhood came back to me and flooded me with great memories from an otherwise difficult time in my life. So there is a chance that LEGO will succeed in proving the value of Smart Bricks and Smart Play sets over time, and my fears may be proven invalid.
Likewise, there's a chance that LEGO fans who like to participate 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 smartest or funniest. And that's also part of the beauty of LEGO – creating what your mind imagines with the tools 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 that the 2026 LEGO Pokémon set will blow me away, as it might be the single best collaboration I could think of based on what I love. For now, though, I'll be wary of Smart Bricks, hoping to be proven wrong.
