Lego Smart Brick General Discussion/Concerns Topic

[Mr Hobbles]

Well, I have my order in for the Throne Room and the X-Wing. I chose to skip on the TIE as the Vader Smart Minifig is included with the Throne Room already - the only extra thing it comes with is the TIE Smart Tag, and three Smart Bricks is plenty to test with.

I would have waited, but I wanted the Vintage Parade Car GWP, and this way I can save buying the Shopping Street modular until there's a either a discount/sale or a 2x points weekend.

[Auroralampinen]

Ok, "sad" news:(.

The smart brick is only availdable on 6 countries:). 

Here is good video:). 

And apparently there will be a somesort of an app:(. 

[MAB]

I look forward to getting a smart brick, but mainly as I want a look inside and want to explore hacking it. They are too expensive to buy at full RRP to do that with though. 

[Napoleon3]

18 hours ago, MAB said:

I look forward to getting a smart brick, but mainly as I want a look inside and want to explore hacking it. They are too expensive to buy at full RRP to do that with though. 

You'll likely be able to get them off Bricklink for reasonable amounts, or you can wait for a sale.

[Mylenium]

On 1/9/2026 at 9:34 PM, MAB said:

[images of LEGO Basic sets removed for efficiency]

And quite a few smaller sets with basic bricks for themed ideas.

Probably not what he meant, considering that on average even these large boxes contain about eight instances of each element. You'd need to buy whole truck loads to get a decent amount of 2 x 4 bricks for instance. And then of course there's also the issue of color. Coral, Dark Pink and Lime Green certainly are not everyone's favorite. In a weird way LEGO themselves are driving people away from buying these sets and users will simply get their bulk lots elsewhere. That doesn't even necessarily translate to them buying original LEGO anymore from Bricklink. The rise of BlueBrixx here in Germany has a lot to do with them offering big parts packs for landscape building and the like for instance...

Mylenium

On 1/9/2026 at 8:12 PM, jodawill said:

but I'd also add that this is just a gimmick that kids will get bored of after a couple days

Yeah, the novelty will wear off quickly. Even if kids like it they will just assemble their favorite model and leave it at that. This isn't the creative breakthrough it is being sold as.

Mylenium

[MAB]

12 hours ago, Napoleon3 said:

You'll likely be able to get them off Bricklink for reasonable amounts, or you can wait for a sale.

I doubt it, at least until they hit clearance. Nobody will be buying these up and selling the smart bricks off at a reasonable price. The rest of the set is not particularly good, and quite over priced compared to similar sets without the smart brick.

[Napoleon3]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

I doubt it, at least until they hit clearance. Nobody will be buying these up and selling the smart bricks off at a reasonable price. The rest of the set is not particularly good, and quite over priced compared to similar sets without the smart brick.

If I look at the X-wing, it is about 600 pieces for 100 USD, it comes with 2 smart figs and one smart brick. If I remove all the stupid bricks (550 parts or so, so about 55$) and the regular minifigures(3 of them, so 15$) , and assume that Bricklink will sell those at their usual rate, That leaves around 30 USD (plus a profit) for the smart pieces, Lego resale is a very competitive market, so let's say 10 USD of profits, so 40 bucks for 2 figs and a brick, likely can get them each for about 15$ a piece, add or take a little depending on demand.

[MAB]

24 minutes ago, Napoleon3 said:

If I look at the X-wing, it is about 600 pieces for 100 USD, it comes with 2 smart figs and one smart brick. If I remove all the stupid bricks (550 parts or so, so about 55$) and the regular minifigures(3 of them, so 15$) , and assume that Bricklink will sell those at their usual rate, That leaves around 30 USD (plus a profit) for the smart pieces, Lego resale is a very competitive market, so let's say 10 USD of profits, so 40 bucks for 2 figs and a brick, likely can get them each for about 15$ a piece, add or take a little depending on demand.

LEGO resellers won't aim for $10 profit parting out a $100 set. $10 is about what it costs in fees to sell that much, assuming it all sells. Most parts sellers aim for a set parting out for at least double what they pay, otherwise it is not worth it. I know as I've been a LEGO reseller for 20 years.

10c a part is not realistic resale value for common parts. It may be the metric used for comparing sets, but is totally unrealistic for resale. Many parts don't sell even when priced at a few cents.

Edited January 11 by MAB

[Toastie]

I'll just wait another (half) decade (hopefully, time for me may well run out ;), and then these "smart bricks" will absolutely be not so smart anymore - electronics is still, despite so many doubts, right on Moore's Law. It sure will deviate from that "law" ^^, since atoms are atoms of some size. But making electronics really small - is happening everywhere. Some just do it, others make a (very) big fuzz about it.

We'll see. Folks, much more importantly: Moments ago, I just fixed my C64, 1984 PCB. It blew the PLA, as I "hoped" after doing some extensive scope sniffing, temporary IC pin cutting and a couple of beers. Everything in this thing is just - big ;) The 6510 seems to be really happy. As I am.

All the best
Thorsten 

 

 

Edited January 11 by Toastie

[MAB]

1 hour ago, Toastie said:

I'll just wait another (half) decade (hopefully, time for me may well run out ;), and then these "smart bricks" will absolutely be not so smart anymore - electronics is still, despite so many doubts, right on Moore's Law. It sure will deviate from that "law" ^^, since atoms are atoms of some size. But making electronics really small - is happening everywhere. Some just do it, others make a (very) big fuzz about it.

We'll see. Folks, much more importantly: Moments ago, I just fixed my C64, 1984 PCB. It blew the PLA, as I "hoped" after doing some extensive scope sniffing, temporary IC pin cutting and a couple of beers. Everything in this thing is just - big ;) The 6510 seems to be really happy. As I am.

Yeah, a number of years ago I was able to replace parts of my ZX Spectrum doing the soldering myself as the parts used back then were nice and big. I wouldn't have a hope of doing it on surface mounted parts. Some of them are smaller than the tips I have for my soldering iron!

[Napoleon3]

7 hours ago, MAB said:

LEGO resellers won't aim for $10 profit parting out a $100 set. $10 is about what it costs in fees to sell that much, assuming it all sells. Most parts sellers aim for a set parting out for at least double what they pay, otherwise it is not worth it. I know as I've been a LEGO reseller for 20 years.

I understand, but most sets when parted out don't cost twice as much as when sold complete, in fact they usually sell for about 20-50% more, which also includes higher costs for storage and time sorting, and yes most sellers don't earn a big profit, as A) they do it as a hobby and B) as you yourself said, most parts can't be sold for much.

There are too many variables here, let's see in a few months when the sets release, I am willing to bet that smart bricks will sell for 20 USD or less within 3 months of their release, what do you say? Winner has bragging rights...

[Toastie]

22 hours ago, MAB said:

I was able to replace parts of my ZX Spectrum

Wonderful!

Oh yes, the ZX Spectrum is my all-time, absolute favorite computer. It taught me everything I know about computers.

Z80 assembly, hardware bank switching [my ZX Spectrum has access to 80kB of memory ^^ (16k+32k) + 32k. No application can use that, but I have it]. And it has 16 I/O ports directly accessible in BASIC by IN and OUT, which is not interfering with its memory address space. Everything is of course inside the case :D Then some advanced BASIC coding, writing PChem lab protocols with TASWORD, using all the features of an Epson printer with assembly, and so much more ... From time to time, it is still running happily in my attic, has a parallel interface for LEGO Interface A and can run my entire fleet of LEGO trains. It is a true marvel. Over the decades, two 16k DRAMs had it, the ULA as well, and the 5V regulator ... all back in place. I simply love this machine. Here is to Sir Clive Sinclair  (just assume there is champagne in the glass).

Same thing here: Surface mounted parts, no way. So, big they must be, the chippies. Which captures me in the 1980s - what an exciting period of time, because one could participate at merely all levels. And then everything became so small, and smaller ...

Back on topic: Making these sounds, truly reflecting in real-time the 3D orientation of the brick, is fantastic. Synthesizing sound from tags is fantastic. Knowing where other bricks are as well. So are my 80kB of memory: It works really nicely, but nobody needs it .

Have fun with your Speccy!
Best, Thorsten 

[ShaydDeGrai]

17 hours ago, Toastie said:

Oh yes, the ZX Spectrum is my all-time, absolute favorite computer. It taught me everything I know about computers.

For me, it was the Osborne-1, a powerful device in its day and a great tinkering platform for decades afterwards, though I had a friend with a Timex Sinclair (basically the USA version of the Spectrum) and very much enjoyed tinkering with that as well.

As for the smart brick, well, it's a lot lighter than my old Osborne and has (slightly) better sound, but I suspect that if I had one of each today, they'd be gathering dust at the same rate.

Maybe I'm just getting overly cynical in my old age.  Yes, the compactness of the device is impressive; yes, wireless recharging is a wise choice; sure, the sensing capabilities  add a new dimension to (passive - back in my day, kids had to make their own whoosh - pew -pew noises ) play features.  BUT, this whole launch just seems like 95% hype and 5% cool "innovation".  Honestly I think I was more "pleasantly surprised" by the latest generation of Technic pull-back motors a couple years ago than I am with this.  If this brick had been a micro-hub, ushering in the next generation of Mindstorms or SPIKE with its own family of external sensors and actuators along with wireless networking and distributed programming options to allow dozens of bricks to work seamlessly in tandem - that would have been worth the hype.  This just feels more like TLG's answer to a doll that cries "momma" when you lay it on its back or two Furbies talking jibberish to one another when you put them on the same shelf - old tech, shrunk down, repackaged and marketed as innovation to a new audience that didn't ask for it in the first place.

And smart brick aside, these initial kits just look rushed and unfinished, like a kid's MOC effort when they don't have a large enough collection to realize their vision.  After all the Star Wars vehicles TLG has released in the past three decades, you'd think they could come up with something better than "Pick-up Truck meets X-Wing" and "Three Quarters of a TIE fighter".  

Could this technology be integrated in a cool and subtle way?  Sure.  Personally, I could envision something like this in a locomotive with different sound effects triggering when the engine passes certain markers embedded in the tracks (oh wait, DUPLO trains have been doing that for years...)  But I think they dropped the ball on this one; way too much hype for for way too small and specialized a delivery.  They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression and my first impression is solidly unimpressed. 

[MAB]

28 minutes ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression and my first impression is solidly unimpressed. 

They do a second chance at a first impression, as when they are ready to release mini-hubs or whatever then they'll call them something different. And with new branding, it's a new chance for a first impression.

I doubt mini-hubs are that far off, but only if there is a market for them. When you look at the size of some of the nano boards available now (and in fact for many years already) they are not all that much bigger. The real issue is the size of the battery, especially if it is going to drive motors.

Edited January 13 by MAB

[ShaydDeGrai]

44 minutes ago, MAB said:

I doubt mini-hubs are that far off, but only if there is a market for them. When you look at the size of some of the nano boards available now (and in fact for many years already) they are not all that much bigger. The real issue is the size of the battery, especially if it is going to drive motors.

Very true, though the model they've embraced since the old RCX days of a combo hub and large battery box is just one possible configuration.  I used to run a lab at university and one of our in-house MIndStorms alternative designs used a high level logic hub that talked to smart servos (or other hubs) over optical fiber (e.g. 1x1 round stud connector rather than the telephone jacks Mindstorms was using at the time).  This connectivity was strictly full duplex data, no common ground or power.   While the system could accommodate a central power supply, it didn't require one, individual elements could be powered with separate "power bricks" (basically rechargeable batteries retrofitted into a 3D printed case.  Motors could share power brick connections or have their own dedicated power sources because the controller was built into the servo, not centralized at the (logic) hub.  Of course the hub also needed power and by de-centralizing the power supply we ran the risk of depleting our batteries asymmetrically (and recharging in situ was usually a major pain), but it also opened up interesting possibilities with respect to weight distribution and upscaling larger designs.  As with most things in engineering, it's a trade-off... 

Does LEGO need a tiny controller hub?  I don't know.  As you (correctly) point out the factors really driving the scale of the MIndStorms and SPIKE hubs isn't the electronics, its the battery, the cable jacks (need to be large enough for young fingers to plug and unplug easily), and the connection points (which need to be large enough for Technic pins and spaced widely enough to offer stability)  This smart brick avoids two (and a half) of those issues: it mounts on studs not pins (not as strong, but doesn't need to be); there are no jacks because it doesn't support external peripherals; and the battery can be much smaller because its not trying to drive anything more demanding than a piezoelectric speaker.  So whether we actually need a smaller hub or not, it's pretty clear that this brick isn't one.

And again, my argument isn't really with the brick itself (I'd happily assume that it was meant for a different audience than me and simply ignore it - I can't expect a toy company to prioritize to desires of a single customer even if he has been playing with their product for six decades...)  I take exception to all the hype; it makes me think they spent way too much time and effort developing this thing (then hurriedly shoved it out the door to make the CES deadline) and don't have anything else interesting to say as a result.

[Toastie]

3 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

BUT, this whole launch just seems like 95% hype and 5% cool "innovation"

I was >waiting< for such an impression to be voiced - and I was actually typing this: Why does everything oh-so-small have to be introduced (today) as if it actually were much more than a perpetuum mobile? Yes, I know, this is how it is done today - well, maybe not that much on that advancement scale: Detection of other bricks, orientation detection, sound synthesis, blinking. Well, maybe it is wanting attention - or maybe a lill desperation, maybe it is what it is. 

Heck, flying to the moon or even to Mars, brainwise, all can be done with tiny microcontrollers available everywhere. Today, the bulkiest parts residing on any current mini-ESP development board are these monster 0.8 mm vias/holes for old-school soldering. Yes, it is a piece of art to make the thing even smaller and fitting everything into a brick. But this entire autonomous-brick-size-thing is self-imposed. Nothing has become any better, but smaller.

2 hours ago, MAB said:

The real issue is the size of the battery, especially if it is going to drive motors.

And will be for quite some time, I believe, as this is really boldly in the way of any autonomous micro-, nano-, pico-devices running “motors”, which can propel pieces of real mass. I just checked (with all this hype, I simply had to): Conservation of energy is still holding true. Although there is tremendous advancement in electrical storage devices, there is a natural capacity limit: Only so many electrons can be moved from one chemical storage container to another and vice versa. As there is a size limit in classical semiconductor miniaturization (the atom , and we are getting closer and closer). Regarding the latter, "stacking" is still not fully exploited, but hey, making things “higher” is affecting size as well :D

Yeah, getting older and older doesn't make it easier for the ever evolving and often revolving entrepreneurs to fire up the spirits. The elderly and impaired have seen so many things announced as breathtaking, game changing, mind-blowing - just to follow their path into oblivion 

Hey, talking of good spirits : Since my bread bin C64 is happily storing bread again, I got out my other vintage Commodore computer, the 1541 floppy drive. Let's see whether the 6502 CPU inside is still cycling happily!

All the best and keep up the good spirits
Thorsten

[JesseNight]

4 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

BUT, this whole launch just seems like 95% hype and 5% cool "innovation".

Sadly that puts it in line with so many things that release these days and end up having a very short life. Hype sells and businesses know it. Gets even worse when they exploit fomo with artificial scarcity.
From a business pov it works. And as long as we still buy it aside from expressing our dissatisfaction, that won't change.
I miss the days of quality releases that we can look back to 30+ years later and still see it was/is good.

[Mylenium]

On 1/13/2026 at 5:09 PM, ShaydDeGrai said:

BUT, this whole launch just seems like 95% hype and 5% cool "innovation".

Welcome to the club! This was one of my biggest frustrations when I was deeply involved with the development and testing of end-user software (graphics and 3D programs). They were selling minimal additions as the next big thing and when Adobe and other companies introduced subscription models it got totally ridiculous. The smallest UI improvement was hyped to high heavens because there was no longer any pressure to actually deliver something that would drive people to update their software.

Mylenium

19 hours ago, JesseNight said:

Hype sells and businesses know it.

Not sure I share this view. Substance still matters. This can be well observed with the current AI bubble or even Meta giving up on VR after having burned bazillions of dollars. Hype only takes you so far when you can't prove a sensible use case. The Smart Brick falls into exactly this category. So far there isn't anything out there that makes it a must-have and it's quite possible that it will die a quiet death if LEGO can't prove its value in the next two years.

Mylenium

[JesseNight]

3 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Not sure I share this view. Substance still matters. This can be well observed with the current AI bubble or even Meta giving up on VR after having burned bazillions of dollars. Hype only takes you so far when you can't prove a sensible use case. The Smart Brick falls into exactly this category. So far there isn't anything out there that makes it a must-have and it's quite possible that it will die a quiet death if LEGO can't prove its value in the next two years.

I'm pretty sure the Smart Brick will sell, even if we're all having doubts. Whether it sells to people who are actually playing with it or just want to cover it on Youtube is a different question entirely.
Hype is short lived, and I never said it will survive long term. That's the problem nowadays, people jump from one hype to the next.
That's what I mean when I said hype sells. Just look at new releases. Limited supply, people stand in line to pre-order products that don't exist yet (and that often end up disappointing). If marketing creates a hype that lands, and exploits fomo with artificial scarcity, it sells.

Did Meta give up on VR? I haven't been following the latest VR news but last I checked the Quest 3 (and even the 2) are still selling good, being among the best standalone sets in more affordable price ranges.
Their software platform Horizon is another story, that never came from the ground because they tried to re-invent a metaverse that already existed and expanded big time for years in different platforms since around 2017.

[Mylenium]

18 hours ago, JesseNight said:

Did Meta give up on VR?

Yes, more or less. Just this week they confirmed a change of strategy after external observers suspected as much after their mass layoffs. And it's not just them. Apple apparently have reduced production of the Vision Pro by a significant amount as well because sales are sluggish.

18 hours ago, JesseNight said:

That's the problem nowadays, people jump from one hype to the next.

Yes, of course. It's ADHD everywhere, fueled by social media.

Mylenium

[ShaydDeGrai]

7 minutes ago, Mylenium said:

 Just this week they confirmed a change of strategy after external observers suspected as much after their mass layoffs. And it's not just them. Apple apparently have reduced production of the Vision Pro by a significant amount as well because sales are sluggish.

I recently spoke with a former student of mine who was part of that Meta VR layoff.  According to him, all the developers in his immediate group were asked how their work related to AI and anyone who couldn't come up with a positive spin as to how yesterday's hot topic could morph into today's shiny new object off the top of their head got the boot (which was nearly all of them).  So I guess VR is out AI is in and today's tech giants have the focus and attention span of a dog in a park full of squirrels.

[Mylenium]

12 minutes ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

So I guess VR is out AI is in and today's tech giants have the focus and attention span of a dog in a park full of squirrels.

Yepp, that's the next disaster waiting to happen. Not in the sense that AI isn't here to stay, but a big chunk of those experiments will go nowhere and in a few years all those expensive data centers they built for it will not be worth much. And an AGI will never come, anyway.

Mylenium

[MAB]

1 hour ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

...  today's tech giants have the focus and attention span of a dog in a park full of squirrels.

That sounds fun. Where is this park full of squirrels? :-)

VR seemed too much of a gimmick. I had a go on a decent headset. It was fun but not particularly useful for about five minutes after which time I never thought about using it again.

 

[Toastie]

1 hour ago, ShaydDeGrai said:

So I guess VR is out AI is in

Yeah, looks like. My university has invested a good amount of € in "virtual and augmented reality in the classroom" over the past couple of years. I simply skipped that as chemistry is taking place in the real lab; there is nothing better than >knowing< how some chemicals smell rather than virtually seeing the smell in 3D. And in PChem, a conflat vacuum seal still needs a wrench and some force to tighten it up. p<1E-9 torr is p<1E-9 torr inside a vacuum chamber. AR/VR or not. 

Turns out, the new generation of administrative intelligence (AdI) personnel is completely flipping out on AI. It appears as if none of the AdI folks really know what AI is, so for starters, all students got free subscriptions to some of this fantastic intelligence out there (as if they would not have it anyway, but that's another story. The "text" sections of PChem lab reports have improved >vastly< over the past three years, with some prose text better to be used in novels; the quizzes about the numbers and their meaning have totally bottomed out. Who cares about numbers, there are only 10. It is what it is).

At least TLG has seen the light (again) and calls their new, groundbreaking, breathtaking, game changing, next generation, educational line: "LEGO® Education’s Computer Science & AI". Spike is out. So seems PUp. The "& AI" bit looks like somebody came stormed in last minute and screamed: "We need AI in the new educational lineup!" - so someone asked CGPT and the AI replied "just append '& AI'". It also explained to them what the "&" means. And all were happy.

Sometimes I find all this ... entertaining.

All the best
Thorsten

 

 

[JesseNight]

7 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Yes, more or less. Just this week they confirmed a change of strategy after external observers suspected as much after their mass layoffs. And it's not just them. Apple apparently have reduced production of the Vision Pro by a significant amount as well because sales are sluggish.

I'm not so surprised about the Vision Pro tbh. It's crazy expensive and if it had been the best by a mile, it might have justified it. But when it's just another VR set at a high price point that's not gonna work. There are very good (or better) alternatives for professional use, and VR enthusiast have been preferring sticking to the HTC lighthouses ecosystem.
As for Meta... I guess the Quest 2 just played the mainstream well during the covid lockdowns at an attractive price point. The Quest 3 boosted that price significantly, and extras on top of that price are a necessary rather than a luxury (better headstrap, better batteries, better face padding). That's been boosting it towards the lower enthusiast grade rather than mainstream.
 

7 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Yes, of course. It's ADHD everywhere, fueled by social media.

That's a good way of putting it in a single sentence 
 

5 hours ago, MAB said:

VR seemed too much of a gimmick. I had a go on a decent headset. It was fun but not particularly useful for about five minutes after which time I never thought about using it again.

It has its uses, just not for everyone.
Think of professional pilot training, especially fighter pilots. Tactical training. Surgery training for doctors. It gives them an immersive way to practice without risks or extra costs beyond the VR hardware and the training software. But not just that, engineers and designers make use of it too to put things together and view their work in a true 3D environment to watch it from all directions.

As for hobby/enthusiast use, I guess it is a niche indeed. It has been growing significantly over the past 10 years though, and not just during covid. Plenty of people like this level of immersion into a social environment with people they cannot be with irl (for example due to distance), or to be immersed into a game world.
 

4 hours ago, Toastie said:

At least TLG has seen the light (again) and calls their new, groundbreaking, breathtaking, game changing, next generation, educational line: "LEGO® Education’s Computer Science & AI". Spike is out. So seems PUp. The "& AI" bit looks like somebody came stormed in last minute and screamed: "We need AI in the new educational lineup!" - so someone asked CGPT and the AI replied "just append '& AI'". It also explained to them what the "&" means. And all were happy.

Sometimes I find all this ... entertaining.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what happened. These last few years we "evolved" fast into asking everything to AI rather than just thinking or talking to fellow people. It's just like how they started adding "smart" to every electronic device's functionality over the years, that word alone seems to attract people (big hype).