kbalage

You really shouldn't overthink this. TLG as a multinational company is acting exactly like every other similar company does. There are lots of departments and everyone is only focusing on their own job. One department sets the embargo dates, the other sends out review sets, the third one grants access to beta apps, and sometimes there's a glitch in the matrix, things get messed up and this happens. Believe me, review embargo dates might seem to be super important for us, but it's way less significant from the company's perspective.

January sets are usually on the shelves by December before the review embargoes so this is not unprecedented, although those smaller boxes may be less expected than this one.

@Andman honestly I don't know at this point. LEGO has published their own guide, and it seems to be, shall we say, "inspired" by my version, because I found some descriptions that match 100%. I have mixed feelings about this, and I'm not sure if I want to do uncredited free work for the company going forward.

We had a nice chat with @Unbrickme, but I have to agree with the others. This forum has many talented and knowledgeable people from the Technic universe, there's no need for the exaggerated titles and expressions.

Nowadays reveals happen before the review embargo, they like to keep 'em separated.

At first I was going to say that since Mindstorms is discontinued, any product related to Spike Prime should appear in that category on lego.com, not under Powered Up. But then I checked, and the Mindstorms hub is still available and categorized under Powered Up, so anything can happen... I don't think we'll get an adapter for the Powered Up/Technic Hub, as that also requires a replacement battery insert and a lid as well.

I have the model in front of me, and I can tell you that the steering is more direct than in the NASCAR Camaro which has a "proper" steering rack. Steering angle is slightly more limited, but won't really affect the playability.

Where did you actually see that in the review? I read it twice but there's nothing about slack and sloppiness. Steering is the usual, it's absolutely direct and without slack, but a fairly limited steering angle. Nothing different compared to the similarly sized models.

As far as I know designer teams at LEGO are most of the time grouped by themes, so it's no surprise that they will use the available hardware components based on their own needs. What Powered Up needed was a central coordination with a clear roadmap in mind, and also a close collaboration between the teams instead of developing their own solutions for very similar problems.

This is not true. There have been several scenarios where sets that have been out of stock for an extended period of time, or updated for some reason, have shown up on lego.com as retired. I wouldn't expect any hardware updates for the motors, they might get a new ID for some internal reason, but I highly doubt they're really retired or being updated. In the case of the XL motor, it's totally alive on the Australian LEGO site for example.

@recklessGlitch yes I am Balázs :) I think the hardware/firmware developers really wanted to create a versatile system that could be used in different LEGO sets and themes, but still be compatible. From then on, the "themes" took over, and the outcome depended entirely on their approach. Each new hardware element that was added later was requested for specific sets, not created to expand the system. Education seems to have serious resources and a systematic approach, having developed the Spike sets with documentation, appropriate software, lessons everything they needed. Mindstorms 51515 was a bit of an afterthought after NXT disappeared. It seemed like a copy of the Education team's homework, but without that systematic approach. The Technic team only focuses on the sets and creates the Control+ profiles for them, they don't seem to care about building a system and the needs of the custom builders (from that standpoint). And then there's the Powered Up App development team, which didn't really have a "home" in any of the themes. It was busy creating profiles for all the motorized City/Ideas, etc. sets and had to juggle its minimal resources to develop the Coding Canvas in the meantime. And that's where it apparently failed, because there were no sets directly related to the coding canvas and what it was supposed to do for customers, so there were no resources granted. It seemed like a "recreational" project ever since its announcement, even though it was supposed to be the central hub for the entire ecosystem, the app that controls them all.

Here's my detailed building review of the set:

As far as I know the Powered Up development isn't outsourced, at least the people I talked to (both on fw and sw side) were LEGO employees. Whether it got the necessary amount of attention and internal resources over the years is a totally different question...

You have too big hands, that was the best advice under my video in response to my complaints :D

lego.com has a quite accurate estimation about both ;)

An interesting aspect to think about is the pricing of the 42160 Audi set, as that contains more electronic components for 170 EUR / $180 than we expected. No other Control+ sets had 3 motors and a hub under the 200 EUR / USD limit, not even before the price increases. Even 42099 (that was considered to be a great parts pack) with a similar amount of parts was launched at $250 which would be almost $300 today. This means the electronic parts alone cannot justify that massive price tag, it'll be very interesting to see what is hidden in that box that can convince customers who see the two 2023 Control+ sets side by side.

I didn't really find much difference, this part was always notoriously difficult to insert and it still is. Especially in sets like the Mars rover where you have a 3L pin with two of these on it and you need to be able to push both in a beam...

Regular Technic sets are usually revealed by retailers or even by TLG themselves well in advance with no prior notification. Considering the amount of anticipation built for the Liebherr crane I guess at least that one will get a press release or a more formal announcement.

You can have an RC car for the same price, but that won't rebuild to a dozen different things for sure. I made an entire video about this comparison so I won't repeat myself here, but there's no obvious winner or loser. I don't say Powered Up / Control+ is the best solution TLG could come up with, but having a reasonably priced RC set with a fair amount of electronic components is at least a step in the right direction.

If you actually check the price and the contents you get with it, it is significantly lower compared to the previous Control+ sets. Things seem to be changing.

They appeared in both white and LBG in recent sets so it might be a simple choice of the designer. You can be a local representative @suffocation I'm glad you enjoyed the content!

I guess they wanted to prevent the gear sliding off the axle, so you need to have the stop at the end. But the 3L/4L axles with stop have the stop section also included in their full length, so you cannot fit another half bush below the stop without having a slightly less secure connection on the other end. Guess that was the compromise choosen, a weird look instead of a HoG that can be pulled out easily during steering.

You cannot push that axle more in, it's a 4L axle with stop but there are only 3.5 modules of "layers" used below it with the connector, the panel, the gear and the half bush.

I've only seen the new version from CaDA, not sure why they would release the old design. Might be a prototype, I was simply wondering if @1gor knows where his black gears came from.

Lol :) There are 3 black older gears available on Bricklink so they do exist, but I don't know where they came from.