No ambient light, mic, position, or orientation yet.
Archived version: https://archive.is/20260311143409/https://www.theverge.com/tech/892894/lego-smart-brick-battery-sensors-disposable
I wonder if this is some kind of loop hole to get around Reese’s law. I’m not seeing the giant warning labels required on smart brick sets searching online.
Here’s my Back to the Future sets both pre/post Reese’s Law.
Aaaand we’ve reached enshittification. Gj Lego.
The only thing that feels useful in these features is the lighting and I achived that in my LEGO city by picking up some of those wired micro LED strings at Dollar Tree and running them between the floors of the buildings.
smart bricks? what? sensors are cool but thats why i play with ada froo…
It’s an impressive brick and system to be fair, but not being able to replace the battery is insanity. Also very overpriced.
Lego is just for rich people these days. Not joking. That’s how it is.
e-waste. they’re depriving kids of imagination and giving them e-waste.
wow, so just more trash and waste for the sake of making toys AI integrated…?
I’m all for giving kids the tools of the future early (with limits)
but why do we have to make it disposable? (profit, I know, its rhetorical guys).
The disposability sucks, but I don’t believe there’s any AI involved.
The point is to suck any imagination out of a child’s head.
HA I’ve been so brainwashed by 2025 I see the word smart and stupidly assume AI.
Looks like its just sensors.
I actually think this makes it worse because it doesn’t really bring a whole lot to the table from a STEM-toy perspective, although I guess learning to utilize sensors could be good for some kids if there is any type of granular control.
I grew up with Lego Mindstorms, so it can definitely inspire.
Yeah, I was really expecting some Mindstorms-level magic when I saw the first announcement teasers. The fact that it’s just an RFID reader with some LEDs is beyond disappointing.
No mindstorms shit in that form factor.
Not with that attitude.
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/20/more-detail-on-that-fantastic-lego-oled-brick/
That thing isn’t going to drive a servo.
If only there were such things as battery packs.
Yeah, I was really expecting some Mindstorms-level magic when I saw the first announcement teasers.
I remember setting up Mindstorms to alert whenever a door was opened, so we could specifically stay up all night reading and know if our parents opened their bedroom door… Simpler times!
I don’t believe there’s any AI involved.
yet. wait.
Okay but I don’t think it’s fair to criticise a product based on hypothetical enshittification.
Call them out if they do it, sure, but don’t just make stuff up and then get mad at the idea of it.
then criticize it for robbing children of their imaginations and producing more e-waste.
there’s plenty of reasons to dislike it.
Yes, I agree on both of those points.
You do realize it’s rechargeable, right? I watched jerryrigeverything’s video on it and it’s honestly a pretty neat and impressive little gadget. I cant imagine the battery ever needing to be replaced even if it were designed to be possible. I would expect it to last 5+ years of heavy play before its battery life would be effected enough to notice.
Okay, but my 20+ year old Lego still work today. Can I expect this e-waste to perform the same for my grandchildren as it would today?
To be fair, as long as the batteries are easily replaceable and don’t degrade destructively, it might age better than the original Mindstorms components which are a PITA to use today.
Then again, plain ABS at worst yellows under too much UV.
You should be able to give your old Lego to your kids, what’s this five year shit?
lol five years
I have legos from 1994.
Kind of sad how low the bar is for our expectations these days…
It’ll still be a lego brick in 10 years, just like a broken down escalator is still a set of stairs
except it will contain lithium ion or other dangerous battery tech, albeit in a small amount, but its still a childrens toy.
The OG Mindstorms sets were better in so many ways. This is one of them.
Before people get all up in arms about the non-replaceable battery… Do you know how small a LEGO brick is? For them to pack all this functionality in there, they have to be EXTREMELY careful with how they use every millimeter of space, and they have to make sure a kid won’t just… pop open the bottom of the brick and eat the battery or something.
The article itself even states:
As you can see in JerryRigEverything’s destructive teardown, it’s difficult to even get at the battery without going through thin, hair-like antennas.
Break even one of them and the entire brick is nonfunctional.
His Video fehlt More like an ad.
Turns out there’s not actually much functionality in these at all. An RFID reader and an RGB LED, whoop-de-shit.
Here’s an example of what cutting-edge brick tech could look like.
Turns out there’s not actually much functionality in these at all. An RFID reader and an RGB LED, whoop-de-shit.
Where did you get that idea? They have an RFID reader and LED, yes, but they also have a speaker, microphone, accelerometer, light and color sensor, near-field magnetic position detection, and then have to fit the battery alongside all of that, all in a 2x4 brick.
Here’s an example of what cutting-edge brick tech could look like.
That brick has a fixed option for what it displays without needing to be entirely reflashed, requires a 4x8 powered baseplate to operate, and compared to the smart brick, doesn’t have RFID, LEDs, sound, color, or light sensing capabilities, no accelerometer, and no ability to detect other bricks near it, along with having no internal battery.
The smart brick can play different (fully interchangeable without firmware reflashing) sounds based on nearby minifigures and interactable buttons and levers, can display lights and sounds based on rotation and movement, can change how it interacts based on nearby smart bricks, and can also be charged wirelessly and operate standalone. And of course, it’ll be able to respond to sounds later on too.
The brick from hackaday has a display. That’s it. It’s cool, yes, but it’s nowhere close to the smart brick.
OK, looks like they actually integrated the speaker, which wasn’t clear at the initial reveal. That’s an improvement. The rest of the sensors fit in basically zero space, so that’s not so impressive, especially since a 2x4 brick has about triple the internal volume as a 2x2 slope brick.
Doesn’t have … LEDs … color
It’s a 72x40 OLED display, so that’s actually 2,880 LEDs, on the order of 1,000× as many LEDs as a single RGB LED.
It can also play Doom.
Isn’t the “Lego” part kinda just the battery casing with bumps on it, though? Batteries often have circuitry. They have the contacts for connecting it to whatever it is powering… they have a case. Sometimes a plastic one…
Just for conversation sake. I don’t think disposable legos are cool or anything.
Check out jerryrigeverything’s video on it. It’s pretty neat. It’s basically just a microcontroller with a battery, nfc coils, charging coils, and sensors. So you place it near other parts of the set and it makes interactive sound effects and lights up and stuff. It recharges with a wireless charging pad and honestly will probably last 10 years+ before the battery degrades meaningfully.
This all sounds like what I described. Yeah.
excuse me, but i believe its pronounced Slop Brick. /s
