Editors’ Choice Toys

LEGO SMART Play System

Review by Angie Kibiloski

LEGO has been a beloved brand for generations of worldwide playset builders, with countless hours spent snapping together colorful blocks of all shapes and sizes, imaginations running wild with creative construction. One could argue that LEGO doesn’t need improvement, but what if it could be enhanced with a little bit of tech inside? LEGO‘s brand new SMART Play System recently debuted with a fitting Star Wars theme. The inclusion of Smart Bricks, Smart Tags, and Smart Minifigures, all triggering lighting and sound effects as they interact, opens up an already fun building experience with even more imaginative possibility. I’m a huge fan of both LEGO and Star Wars, so I was extra excited to get my hands on a few of these sets, and they met all of my high expectations.

Let’s talk about the various elements of these LEGO SMART Play sets, the technology inside, and how they enhance the builds. There are 3 elements in these sets that interact with each other to create sounds and light effects: Smart Bricks, Smart Tags, and Smart Minifigures. Smart Bricks are the hub of interaction, and the pieces that actually produce the lights and sounds. They’re packed with tech like proximity, color, and motion sensors, which react uniquely when different Smart Tags, Smart Minifigures, and certain colored blocks are nearby, as well as to your movements while playing. Smart Tags and Smart Minifigures are passive, containing the data to tell the Smart Brick what sounds it should be playing when they come near, like soaring ship engines, laser blasts, or R2-D2’s beep-boops. The already incredibly cool build of Luke’s Red Five X-Wing set, for instance, comes to life with sounds that you’d otherwise have to make yourself. While there is something to be said for the creativity of making your own “whish-whoosh, pewpew, beep-boop-beep” sounds, it’s even more exciting when the bricks produce these themselves. All of this interactive fun is totally screen-free, allowing imaginations to be front and center without distraction, but there is an optional LEGO SMART Assist parental control app, for firmware and feature updates, sound settings, tutorials, and customer support.

I expected the Smart Bricks to be bigger, like a central chunk that the entire set is built around, considering how much tech is packed inside, but they’re just the size of a standard 2x6x2 block, making them easy to integrate into any build, not just the sets they come with. Inside this small yet mighty brick, alongside a tiny silicon ASIC chip, color sensor, mini speaker, and accelerometer, LEGO has packed an array of wireless sensor coils, one for charging, and the rest for identifying nearby Smart Tags and Smart Minifigs. These sensors tell it which sound effects to make in which combination, even when in proximity to multiple tags. LEGO has programmed a wide variety of sounds that are triggered by not just specific Smart Tags and Smart Minifigures alone, but also how they uniquely react in combination with each other. The sounds R2-D2 makes when paired with a Smart Tag on the X-Wing may be totally different than when he’s paired with a utility cart or turret gun, or when Luke is sitting in the X-Wing with him. This encourages exploration during playtime, and may even unlock some surprises. The charging coil powers the Smart Brick, just by resting it on top of its cheery yellow charging station, which itself plugs into a USB-A port. In 2 hours of charge time, the Smart Brick gets 10-20 minutes of continuous sound and light effects before needing to return to the station, which feels a bit short for a play session, but also reasonable for such a small piece.

The LEGO SMART Play System sets come in 2 formats, the SMART Play All-In-One and the SMART Play Compatible options. There are currently 3 All-In-One sets, which come with everything you need to build and interactive with the full array of lights and sounds, with a varying number of Smart Tags, Smart Minifigures, and Smart Bricks depending on the set. The Compatible sets, of which there are currently 5, come with Smart Tags and Smart Minifigures, but not their own Smart Bricks, meaning you’ll need to borrow one from another set, or incorporate elements from both sets into one larger build. The SMART Play All-In-One sets in this debut Star Wars theme include: Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter ($69.99), Luke’s Red Five X-Wing ($89.99), and Throne Room Duel & A-Wing ($159.99). The SMART Play Compatible sets include: Luke’s Landspeeder ($39.99), AT-ST Attack on Endor ($49.99), Yoda’s Hut and Jedi Training ($69.99), Mos Eisley Cantina ($79.99), and Millennium Falcon ($99.99). All of the sets in this theme are amazing, high quality, and complex builds on their own, but adding in the SMART Play lighting and sound elements really brings them to life.

For the purposes of this review, LEGO kindly sent me Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter, Luke’s Red Five X-Wing, and Mos Eisley Cantina, all of which made my heart happy with child-like glee to build. I’ve been a grown adult for more years than I wasn’t at this point, and I’ve never lost my love of building LEGO creations, but adding in the SMART Play System lights and sounds brought back some of the wonder and joy that captivated me when playing with a new set as a kid. This tech doesn’t eliminate the imagination inherent to playing with LEGO, it just enhances it with accompanying effects, as you and the Smart Bricks play cooperatively together. If you want to see one of these sets in action, check out my video of the completed Luke’s Red Five X-Wing build, where I take you through how the single Smart Brick interacts with all the component parts of the set. To learn more about the tech inside the LEGO SMART Play System, you can dive deeper on LEGO.com. Then, when you’re ready to join in the fun, browse through all of the current SMART Play sets on their store site.