LEGO SMART Bricks introduce a brand new approach to construct — and so they do not require screens

LEGO introduced its new SMART Play system at CES on Monday, including interactive, responsive LEGOs to the famously analog franchise.

The SMART Play system features a 2×4 brick, SMART Tag tiles, and SMART Minifigures. The SMART Bricks and Minifigures can sense close by SMART Tags, that are 2×2 studless tiles with distinctive digital IDs that inform the Bricks and Minifigures find out how to act.

If the SMART Tag is available in a set for constructing a helicopter, for instance, then the Sensible Brick will gentle up and make propeller sounds that might assist convey a helicopter to life. Its built-in accelerometer would make these lights and sounds extra in keeping with the way you’re truly taking part in with the helicopter, because the Brick will be capable to sense when the helicopter is zooming by way of the sky or turned the other way up.

The SMART Bricks are powered by a patented ASIC chip, which is smaller than the scale of a single LEGO stud. The chip makes use of near-field magnetic positioning to acknowledge the Tags round it, in addition to a miniature speaker, accelerometer, and LED array. LEGO additionally developed a Bluetooth-based protocol known as BrickNet, which permits a number of SMART Bricks to acknowledge one another and function in tandem. The corporate claims that BrickNet is protected by enhanced encryption and privateness controls (all of which is critical, however think about a world the place hacking into toys wasn’t a priority!).

There’s no setup required to pair the weather of the SMART Play system, making it simple for teenagers to get began — and oldsters might be happy to notice that there aren’t any screens concerned within the SMART system in any respect. Nevertheless, LEGO’s web site says that there might be a SMART Tag for animating LEGO bogs, so… there’s that.

LEGO’s first two SMART Play units — that are each Star Wars-themed — will launch on March 1, although preorders open on Friday. The “Luke’s Pink 5 X-wing” constructing set will retail for $69.99, whereas the bigger “Throne Room Duel and A-wing” set will price $159.99. These units use the SMART Play system to animate characters like Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, permitting them to work together with SMART Tags, which allow Lightsaber duels amongst different Star Wars-related capabilities.