Lego smart bricks introduce a new way to build – and they don’t require a screen

Lego announced its new Smart gaming system has THESE Monday, adding interactive, reactive Legos to the popular analog franchise.

The Smart Play system includes a 2×4 brick, Smart Tag tiles and smart figures. Smart bricks and figures can detect nearby smart beacons, which are 2×2 studless tiles with unique digital identifiers that tell the bricks and figures how to act.

If the Smart Tag comes in a set to build a helicopter, for example, the Smart Brick will light up and emit propeller sounds that help bring a helicopter to life. Its built-in accelerometer would make these lights and sounds more consistent with how you actually play with the helicopter, since Brick will be able to detect when the helicopter is zooming through the sky or being knocked over.

Smart Bricks are powered by a patented ASIC chip, smaller than the size of a single Lego stud. The chip uses near-field magnetic positioning to recognize beacons around it, along with a miniature speaker, accelerometer and LED array. Lego has also developed a Bluetooth protocol called BrickNet, which allows multiple Smart Bricks to recognize each other and work in tandem. The company says BrickNet is protected by enhanced encryption and privacy controls (all of which are necessary, but imagine a world where toy hacking wasn’t a problem!).

No setup is required to pair the elements of the Smart Play system, making it easy for kids to get started – and parents will be happy to find that there are no screens involved with the Smart system. However, the Lego website states that there will be a Smart Tag to animate the Lego toilet, so… there you go.

Lego’s first two Smart Play sets, both Star Wars-themed, launch on March 1, although pre-orders open on Friday. The “Luke’s Red Five X-wing” building set will cost $69.99, while the larger “Throne Room Duel and A-wing” set will cost $159.99. These sets use the Smart Play system to animate characters like Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, allowing them to interact with Smart Tags, which enable lightsaber duels, among other Star Wars-related abilities.