Lego’s iconic brick is getting its biggest upgrade since the modern design was unveiled in 1958: meet the Lego Smart Brick.
Crucially, this massive change, which Lego announced at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, doesn’t alter the look or feel of the brick at all, or detract from the building experience, whether you like to follow the instructions or let your imagination run wild – it’s an under-the-hood update that puts a chip inside a standard brick, and it’s the key to the new Lego Smart Play system.
That means you’ll hear an X-Wing or TIE Fighter roar to life, iconic blasters and lightsabers fire off, and other familiar sounds trigger as you move Smart Minifigures like Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and Darth Vader around a spacecraft or building.
We’ll take a closer look at the three sets, which launch on March 1, with preorders opening January 9, below – but first, let’s talk tech.
Classic brick looks with tech inside
Lego is powering Smart Play with a chip that’s smaller than a single Lego stud, packed alongside sensors and a speaker inside the Smart Brick.
The Lego Smart Play System is essentially made up of three hardware components that work within the brick system we’ve known for years. The central piece is the Lego Smart Brick, which looks like a standard long brick and is identical in size to a 2 x 4 – where it differs is under the hood.
Inside is a custom mixed-signal 4.1mm ASIC chip, which acts as the system’s brain. It allows the Smart Brick to sense when a Smart Minifigure or Smart Tag approaches, and map its position in space. It runs a proprietary Play Engine that enables this spatial awareness using several pieces of hardware, including a precision copper coil for tag recognition and near-field magnetic positioning.
One of the most interesting elements is what Lego calls Neighbor Position Measurement (NPM). This allows a Smart Brick to determine whether it’s close to another Smart Brick, effectively giving it a sense of its surroundings. While the three sets launching in March only include a single Smart Brick, this clearly lays the groundwork for future expansion and potential customization.
The Smart Brick can also produce audio, which is handled through several modular synthesizers, with a miniature speaker pushing the sound out – in the Star Wars sets, this is what delivers all the familiar effects. There’s also an LED array for dynamic lighting – something Lego has done before – but here, other Lego pieces can trigger those effects based on their position and orientation, which is genuinely exciting.
Each Smart Tag and Smart Minifigure features a unique digital ID that sits within what Lego calls the ‘BrickNet’. The Smart Brick reads this ID via near-field magnetic communication, while BrickNet itself functions as a private, local Bluetooth-based protocol.
Yes, it’s seriously high-tech for a Lego brick, but most of this – assuming it works as promised, and we’ll be getting a demo shortly – should just work. For example, if a Minifigure moves quickly past a set and the Smart Brick senses it, that motion can trigger sound and light. It’s not reinventing the Lego wheel, but it does add something new to the play experience without detracting from the imagination-led storytelling Lego has enabled for decades.
Crucially, all connectivity is handled locally, either through BrickNet or positional sensing, meaning there’s no app or additional hardware required. Battery life is an obvious question, but Lego says the Smart Play system is designed for long-term reliability and will work even after years of dormancy during which the Smart Bricks aren’t actively engaged.
As for charging, Lego is doing something that, on paper, feels almost too convenient: Smart Bricks can be placed in any orientation on a wireless charging pad. It’s something we’ll be very keen to see in action.
Lego Smart Play is coming to a Galaxy, Far Far Away first
The first wave of Lego Smart Play launches with three Star Wars sets, each designed to showcase the system in different ways, and, most importantly, all priced affordably.
Luke’s Red Five X-Wing set is a 584-piece set priced at $99.99 / £79.99 / AU$149.99, and it might just be my favorite of the new Smart Play systems. It includes Smart Minifigures of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, along with R2-D2, Rebel crew members, and Stormtroopers.
The build combines Rebel and Imperial elements, including an Imperial turret, transporter, and command centre, with Smart Tags triggering blaster effects, engine sounds, lighting cues, and even refueling and repair audio as play unfolds. The focus on play, with everything you need to act out iconic scenes, but also this could work as a display piece for the Star Wars faithful.
Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter is the smallest of the three sets at 473 pieces, and is priced at $69.99 / £59.99 / AU$99.99. It’s all about Vader’s iconic fighter, which is paired with a small Rebel outpost and Imperial fueling station. A Smart Minifigure of Darth Vader is key here, with Smart Play focusing on motion-based interaction, including the familiar roar of twin ion engines and other audio cues.
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Throne Room Duel & A-Wing is the largest and most ambitious set of the launch lineup at 962 pieces, and costs $159.99 / £139.99 / AU$249.99. This recreates the iconic Emperor’s throne room from Return of the Jedi and includes Smart Minifigures of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and Emperor Palpatine.
It also adds an A-Wing fighter with a pilot, Royal Guards, and a Death Star turret equipped with Smart Tags. Here, Smart Play leans heavily into atmosphere, with lightsaber hums, ship engines, and even musical cues triggered by character placement and movement.
Across all three sets Lego isn’t trying to replace traditional Lego or Star Wars play, but quietly enhances it. The Smart Play system adds sound, light, and context without demanding screens or apps, ultimately letting the tech fade into the background while imagination takes the lead as you recreate iconic stories.
A genuinely smart evolution of Lego play
What I like most about Lego Smart Play is how invisible it feels. There’s no app, no screen, and no moment where the tech demands your attention instead of the bricks. Everything reacts naturally to how you’re already playing, which makes the added sound and lighting feel like a genuine enhancement rather than a gimmick.
It also feels deliberately built for the long term. Features like Neighbor Position Measurement suggest this is just the foundation, not a one-off experiment, and the fact that everything runs locally gives me confidence it won’t age out in a few years. This feels like the first step in a much bigger Smart Play roadmap.
I’ll be going hands-on with the first Smart Play sets soon to see how it all works in practice, but if you’re already sold, preorders for the new Lego Star Wars Smart Play sets go live on January 9 ahead of their March 1 launch. If this lands the way it looks on paper, this likely won’t be the last we hear about Smart Play.
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jacob.krol@futurenet.com (Jacob Krol)
