LEGO has unveiled a revolutionary new product at CES, the world's largest consumer electronics trade show: the 'Smart Brick', a smart brick that can see, hear and feel its surroundings. This game-changing innovation is part of LEGO's new "SMART Play" system, designed to bring physical play to life with interactive sounds and behaviors.
The Smart Brick itself is a standard two-by-four LEGO brick but has been embedded with an advanced chip that allows it to recognize distance, color, motion, and even interpret the personalities of thousands of LEGO minifigures. This tiny chip packs in impressive technology, including responsive lights, a color-recognition scanner, a sound synthesizer, and a built-in accelerometer.
When used in conjunction with SMART tags and SMART minifigures, the Smart Brick can respond to its environment in a range of ways. The SMART Tag is a flat tile embedded with a unique digital ID that tells the nearby Smart Brick what role it should assume, while the SMART minifigure contains its own unique digital ID that encodes a character's personality and guides how the Smart Brick behaves.
At the recent CES demo, LEGO showcased the Smart Brick's capabilities by placing it on a panel divided into four colors. As the brick moved across the surface, it lit up to match the color beneath it. In another demonstration, a Smart Brick was attached to a LEGO yellow duck and moved through different positions – splashing, sleeping, even flying - to test its emotional responses.
The Smart Brick can also sense proximity, reacting by changing lights or emitting sounds as other bricks move closer or farther away. When placed on or near a SMART Tag, it instantly assumes the assigned role. Meanwhile, SMART minifigures react uniquely to their environments through distinct sounds and behaviors, which are triggered by nearby Smart Bricks.
The SMART Play system is set to officially launch on March 1, with preorders for an all-in-one LEGO Star Wars SMART Play set beginning on January 9. This groundbreaking innovation promises to revolutionize the world of play, bringing a new level of interactivity and immersion to the beloved LEGO brand.
The Smart Brick itself is a standard two-by-four LEGO brick but has been embedded with an advanced chip that allows it to recognize distance, color, motion, and even interpret the personalities of thousands of LEGO minifigures. This tiny chip packs in impressive technology, including responsive lights, a color-recognition scanner, a sound synthesizer, and a built-in accelerometer.
When used in conjunction with SMART tags and SMART minifigures, the Smart Brick can respond to its environment in a range of ways. The SMART Tag is a flat tile embedded with a unique digital ID that tells the nearby Smart Brick what role it should assume, while the SMART minifigure contains its own unique digital ID that encodes a character's personality and guides how the Smart Brick behaves.
At the recent CES demo, LEGO showcased the Smart Brick's capabilities by placing it on a panel divided into four colors. As the brick moved across the surface, it lit up to match the color beneath it. In another demonstration, a Smart Brick was attached to a LEGO yellow duck and moved through different positions – splashing, sleeping, even flying - to test its emotional responses.
The Smart Brick can also sense proximity, reacting by changing lights or emitting sounds as other bricks move closer or farther away. When placed on or near a SMART Tag, it instantly assumes the assigned role. Meanwhile, SMART minifigures react uniquely to their environments through distinct sounds and behaviors, which are triggered by nearby Smart Bricks.
The SMART Play system is set to officially launch on March 1, with preorders for an all-in-one LEGO Star Wars SMART Play set beginning on January 9. This groundbreaking innovation promises to revolutionize the world of play, bringing a new level of interactivity and immersion to the beloved LEGO brand.
the smart brick is literally the coolest thing i've seen in ages! how cool would it be to have your bricks come to life? i can already imagine the possibilities - like having a whole city built out of smart bricks that can respond to each other and the environment. i'm also kinda curious about how they're going to deal with all the data from the minifigures' personalities... is it gonna get overwhelming? 