Even when you’re in your 70s, there are still firsts to experience. Lego proved that at CES 2026, during its first-ever presentation at the electronics trade show. There the company introduced Smart Play, a new product line that aims to bring a new layer of immersion and interactivity to Lego sets, via a special brick packed with sensors, an accelerometer, a sound system, and wireless recharging capabilities.
That sounds like a lot of bulky tech, but Lego is able to pack it all into a standard two-by-four brick that doesn’t weigh much more than a standard block. That brick works in conjunction with Smart Tags, the flat two-by-two plates that include coding to give the bricks specific instructions.
At first glance, Smart Play seems like a fun gimmick at best and a way to milk more money from fans at worst. It also looks a bit familiar, in the vein of the Super Mario Lego sets that have already included some measure of electronic interactivity. However, my skepticism faded when I got to play with the new Smart Play Star Wars sets. After getting my hands on them, I am excited about what this advancement could lead to going forward, for a few reasons. However, there’s one looming question I’m still a little scared of.
A simplified way to immerse yourself
Launching Smart Play with a trio of Star Wars sets makes sense on a number of different fronts. Obviously, Star Wars Lego sets sell well, and the fanbase for the franchise seemingly never runs out of purchasing steam. A galaxy far, far away is also the perfect place to really explore the potential of Smart Play.
Lego’s CES keynote featured a video with two kids chasing each other around a room, using Smart Play to fire blasters at each other in a vicious space dogfight. The ships each had buttons on the back, triggering blaster sounds and light effects from one ship, while the Smart Brick in the other flashed and sounded like it had been hit. That’s all due to the fact that Smart Bricks in proximity can communicate and react with one another. What’s more, those bricks, along with the Smart Tags and Smart Minifigures, can be used across any Lego set.
So, let’s say you’re a Star Trek builder, and you want some lights and blaster sounds for your The Next Generation-era Enterprise build. You’ll get Star Wars sounds, but with a little imagination, they can be anything. And that’s really what makes Smart Play such an interesting next step for Lego.
The ability to add space sounds to any of your builds, Star Wars or not, opens up how immersive playing with them can be. Sure, a kid making blaster sounds with their mouth is fun. But what’s even more fun is hitting a button and triggering a blaster that is also recognized as a hit on the other ship you’re battling.
Besides, growing up in an era with a drought of Star Wars Lego left me building my own versions of my favorite spaceships. I’d love to go back in time and add authentic blaster effects to them.
Color is very important
As for how those blasters work, it’s both more complicated and more simple than pushing a button. While the trigger button will lead to them firing, it’s not actually triggering the effect. Instead, it’s physically pushing the Smart Brick forward into place next to a red brick. The Smart Brick’s color sensor sees the red and is told that it’s a blaster shot, setting off the appropriate lights and sounds.
During its demonstration, Lego showed a custom Smart Tag that could read basic colors using the sensor, illuminating the appropriately colored lights. So far, it looks like they’re primarily using red in the Star Wars sets for blasters, but there are innumerable possibilities for other colors going forward.
Smart Play’s sound is impressive
You’ll be surprised how loud a tiny Lego brick can be. According to Lego Smart Play global marketing director Alex Millington, that’s a big part of why it’s taken eight years of development to bring Smart Play to market.
“You’ll notice, actually, on the brick itself, it has these little holes on the side,” he explains to Polygon. “So, it’s not actually completely solid. And that’s part of being able to let the audio from the speaker actually get out from the brick.”
What’s more impressive, though, is how that sound is made. None of the sounds that come from Smart Bricks are pre-recorded. Instead, there is a synthesizer in the brick, creating sounds based on instructions from the Smart Tag placed on it. For example, Luke Skywalker’s Red 5 X-Wing fighter can make sounds for the ship, Luke, and even R2-D2, if he’s attached to the ship. The brick can make appropriate R2 beeps and boops, a pretty good version of X-wing flight and blaster sounds, and even gibberish made to sound like Luke.
That’s something that will certainly inspire a few memes. Like the Sims have Simlish, Lego Smart Minifigures have their own garbled language that’s impossible to decipher. For my money, though, that goes hand-in-hand with the interactivity of play. Keeping the dialogue limited to gibberish allows those playing to fill in the specific words.
What’s missing?
As impressed by Smart Play as I was, I have a major concern. With three Star Wars sets coming and nothing else announced yet, so much of the interactivity on display at CES simply isn’t available to consumers. Most of Lego’s keynote presentation was dedicated to the possibilities of Smart Bricks and Tags for a wide range of Lego builds, including simple classics like Duck, Car, and Airplane. It wasn’t until my hands-on demo, though, that I found out none of those are actually coming to market. They were created purely for demonstration purposes.
While I understand showing off the possibilities of what’s to come, I’m already more interested in the Smart Tags that aren’t coming out than the ones that are. Among the demo Tags was a police car that could distinguish between cop and criminal minifigures, with a variety of sound and light options — including crashes and high-speed chases. Yes, Star Wars is cool, and the new sets look awesome, but Lego needs to remember that everything doesn’t have to be a licensed mega-franchise. Some of us just want to bring our race cars to life.
As a starting point, though, Lego Smart Play has much more going for it than I expected, and it’s easy to see how this can engage kids even deeper in play. Star Wars is a good place to start, but here’s hoping Lego is also looking to serve fans of more general collections like City and Friends.
And if Lego isn’t too busy, I’d take some Fortnite sets with Smart Play too. Thank you.
