Lego bricks come in a multitude of shapes and sizes, but they’re getting a big tech upgrade in 2026 thanks to news announced at CES this year. Meet the Lego Smart Brick, a regular-sized 2 x 4 brick packed with modern technology to enable sets that respond to the way you play or the sets you build. The company’s new initiative, Smart Play, includes Smart Brick and Smart Minifigures as well as Smart Tags. It remains to be seen how die-hard Lego fans will take to this new initiative, but it’s fair to say that this is the biggest step Lego has ever taken to infuse its products with connected technology.
The Smart Brick has a 4.1mm ASIC chip inside it that Lego says is smaller than a standard Lego stud. It uses something called the Play Engine that can sense things like motion, shape and magnetic fields. Thanks to this and other integrated copper coils, the Smart Brick can sense the distance, direction and position of other smart bricks around it when building. The brick also has a small built-in speaker, accelerometer and LED array. Lego says the speaker can produce sound “tied to the action of live performances” rather than simply playing pre-recorded clips.
Smart Tag and Smart Minifigures are very simple. The Tag is a 2 x 2 studless tile with a digital ID embedded in it that the Smart Brick can read by “proximal magnetic contact.” This obviously sounds like NFC, but we can’t be sure if these new Lego pieces will be able to communicate with any other NFC devices. Similarly, the Smart Minifigure also has a digital ID read by NFC.
The purpose of the Smart Tag and similar technology in the Smart Minifigure is to inform the Smart Brick in what type of situation it is being used. As Lego puts it, “The role of the Smart Tag is to tell the Smart Brick how to play with you.” The Tag tells Brick what kind of thing it should be, animal, car etc. A Smart Tag on a Lego Star Wars X-Wing set, for example, will contain a unique ID and instructions on how the Smart Brick should behave.
If this isn’t enough, Lego is also building a local wireless layer that connects all of this called BrickNet. It is Bluetooth based and uses Lego’s “Neighbor Position Measurement” system, which lets the Smart Bricks know how close they are to each other and how centered they are. Lego says this allows the bricks to “talk” to each other without the need for apps, an internet connection or external controls. It sounds like the idea that all three of these new Smart pieces can communicate and interact without the need for setup, should make it as refreshing as a traditional Lego set.
That being said, these bricks will naturally require some strength. Lego says their batteries should still work even after “years” of inactivity, and the coils and power system are designed so that multiple bricks can be charged wirelessly from a shared charging pad.
Lego Star Wars set with smart bricks (Lego)
Speaking of sets, Lego surprisingly launched the Smart Play system with its major licensed partner: Star Wars. There will be three “all-in-one” Star Wars sets available, all of which are on the smaller side and aimed at kids, rather than the 1,000-plus episodes the company has released to keep adults (like me) interested.
The prices have increased compared to the non-smart sets, but not too much. Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter is a 473-piece set with a smart Darth Vader Minifigure, one Smart Brick and one Smart Tag, priced at $70. Luke’s Red Five X-Wing is a 584 set with two Smart Minifigures, one Smart Brick and five Smart Tags, valued at $100. The Throne Room Duel & A-wing is a 962-piece set with three Smart Minifigures, two Smart Bricks and five Smart Tags, priced at a staggering $160.
It’s a completely new approach to Lego, and you won’t have to wait long to check it out. The company is putting those three sets up for pre-order on January 9, and they’ll launch on March 1. Obviously, there’s a lot of technology here that’s completely new to Lego, and so it’s hard to imagine how it’ll all look when it comes together — but we hope Lego will have some sets on hand here at CES so we can find out how the Smart Play system works.
In the meantime, you can find a few videos on how Smart Play works here.
