{"id":495348,"date":"2026-02-24T02:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T02:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/495348\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T02:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T02:31:09","slug":"legos-smart-play-bricks-sound-awful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/495348\/","title":{"rendered":"Lego’s Smart Play Bricks Sound Awful"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since they were introduced at CES earlier this year, Lego has had to fight an uphill battle to convince increasingly skeptical audiences that its new \u201cSmart Play\u201d system<\/a>\u2014featuring electronic bricks that could light up and make sounds when interacting with specific tiles and minifigures\u2014was the hot new future<\/a> of playing with plastic bricks. From high prices to compromised set designs, it\u2019s been a challenge to show that the additions smart bricks made in lights and sounds could make up for those weaknesses elsewhere.<\/p>\n

But now, ahead of their release next week, it turns out that the smart bricks also just kind of sound terrible.<\/p>\n

The initial wave of\u00a0Star Wars Smart Play (and \u201cSmart Play compatible\u201d<\/a>) sets has started making its way into people\u2019s hands, allowing us to get a better picture of what the smart bricks themselves are capable of outside of tech demos and product pages. That means we can really hear what the sound functionality they can bring to the Lego play experience is\u2014which Lego has previously explained as being able to recreate talking sounds, special effects like vehicle engines or refueling noises, or, especially in the case of Star Wars with the line being used to introduce the tech to the world, replicating iconic music and sound effects<\/a> from the franchise.<\/p>\n

Except\u2026 not\u00a0exactly. There\u2019s definitely fun stuff in the examples above, like the Muzak-y renditions of the Force theme and \u201cThe Imperial March\u201d playing when Luke, Vader, and the Emperor are placed in proximity or the Dewback purring gently when you pet it or lay it on its side to \u201csleep.\u201d But for the most part, what\u2019s on offer is pretty grim. The engine sounds are all pretty generic and sound nothing like the Star Wars vehicles they\u2019re meant to be emulating.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the \u201ctalking\u201d sounds that are really awful, sounding very similar regardless of whether it\u2019s Luke, Leia, Vader, Han, the Emperor, Greedo, Yoda, or Obi-Wan all largely making the same warbling sounds at various pitches of modulating (if the smart brick\u2019s synthesizer is so limited, surely we could\u2019ve gotten something closer to the mumbles of the classic Lego Star Wars games<\/a> over this?). The only one that gets out of it even remotely well is R2-D2, and that\u2019s because he\u2019s best known for beeps and boops and the occasional whistles.<\/p>\n

But again, it\u2019s difficult to separate Smart Play from what it can do, to varying degrees of success, from the extremely high cost of entry facing the platform right now. The sounds being a little funky and the lights atop the brick itself being kind of there would maybe be more palatable as the first iteration of a technology that wasn\u2019t asking people\u2014especially the parents of the kids these sets and functionalities are clearly aimed at\u2014to pay $70 as the minimum entry point to Smart Play at all (there are cheaper \u201cSmart Play Compatible\u201d sets available that include smart minifigures and smart tags, but not the brick, meaning you\u2019re paying their price plus the $70 it takes to get the cheapest set to actually include one). And if you want multiple bricks to make the most out of their interactivity, as weird as it is? It\u2019s $160 for a set that has two or $140 if you don\u2019t mind doubling up on the same set.<\/p>\n

Asking people to pay all that\u2014especially at a time when Lego prices are already pretty rough<\/a>\u2014only to get a product that not only doesn\u2019t look as good as other Lego sets (for kids or adults alike) but also just sounds bad on top of all that as a fundamental feature feels like a disaster waiting to happen for Lego. Maybe the expectations wouldn\u2019t be as high if Smart Play wasn\u2019t introduced with a brand like Star Wars, filled with iconic sounds and music that generations of people have had burned into their minds for almost 50 years. But the price hurdle would likely still remain, and it would equally remain that you\u2019re paying an awful lot of money for very little additive value in return.<\/p>\n

Time will tell if Smart Play will be able to endure for longer than this wave of\u00a0Star Wars sets and maybe even get the chance to iterate the technology into something closer to its big ideas. But for now, what the feature is offering just doesn\u2019t seem to be worth it.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ever since they were introduced at CES earlier this year, Lego has had to fight an uphill battle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,57370,21883,61],"class_list":["post-495348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lego","tag-star-wars","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}