{"id":266873,"date":"2026-01-27T17:45:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T17:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/266873\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T17:45:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T17:45:06","slug":"legos-newest-star-wars-smart-play-sets-are-cheaper-with-a-huge-catch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/266873\/","title":{"rendered":"Lego’s Newest ‘Star Wars’ Smart Play Sets Are Cheaper, With a Huge Catch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month at CES, Lego<\/a> unveiled its new \u201cSmart Play\u201d system<\/a>, a plan to heavily integrate interactive light and sound tech into its play sets through unique bricks, minifigures, and tiles. The brick maker started off its push for the system with its Star Wars line, and almost immediately encountered a problem: no matter how cool the potential of the system looked in demonstrations at a tech show with a primed audience, the average Lego person saw sets that did not look very good with a very large price tag<\/a> attached.<\/p>\n

For the second wave of\u00a0Star Wars \u201cSmart Play\u201d sets, it seemed like Lego learned the lesson at first, with the five new sets revealed today all clocking in at prices ranging from $40 to $100. They include new takes on Luke\u2019s Landspeeder ($40 for 215 pieces, a \u201cSmart\u201d Luke Skywalker minifigure, and a standard Jawa minifigure), the AT-ST ($50 for 347 pieces, with a \u201cSmart\u201d Wicket the Ewok, and standard AT-ST driver and Scout Trooper minifigures), and the Millennium Falcon ($100 for 885 pieces and \u201cSmart\u201d minifigures of Han, Chewie, 3PO, and Luke), and two playsets: one inspired by the Mos Eisley Cantina sequence in A New Hope ($80 for 666 pieces, with \u201cSmart\u201d Greedo and Obi-Wan minifigures as well as standard versions of a Sand Trooper and two Cantina Band members) and Yoda\u2019s hut on Dagobah in Empire Strikes Back ($70 for 440 pieces, as well as \u201cSmart\u201d minifigures of Luke and Yoda, as well as a standard R2-D2).<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where that catch comes in: none of these sets actually include a smart brick.<\/p>\n

The \u201cSmart Play\u201d system works by having specialized tiles and minifigures that can communicate with the aforementioned smart bricks, which can then respond to that interactivity by playing sounds or light-up features in different ways. All five of the new sets still include these specialized tiles and minifigures\u2014but to actually get anything out of that interactivity, you have to buy one of the three previously revealed \u201cAll In One\u201d sets Lego revealed, baking in at the very least an extra $70 cost to get the cheapest of those three, the Darth Vader\u2019s TIE Fighter set.<\/p>\n

As of now, these sets are the only way to get new smart bricks: it\u2019s unknown if Lego will ever sell just the bricks themselves, as they are the most universal element of the \u201cSmart Play\u201d system, or if the expectation going forward is that you will have to buy in on an \u201cAll In One\u201d set to get bricks to use in the sets that don\u2019t come with one. Suddenly, to get the full use out of it, that $40 landspeeder doesn\u2019t seem like a great deal.<\/p>\n

And to be honest, even though the price tag is lower without the smart bricks, these sets still don\u2019t come off looking too great. The inclusion of the smart minifigures is still adding a bit of sticker shock even without the inclusion of the smart brick, it seems, as $40 for a 215-piece set as the minimum entry point for the line feels like a high ask. Even though the bricks aren\u2019t included, all the sets are still designed to compromise for their potential presence\u2014which, for ease of addition and removal, Lego has decided essentially means a bunch of builds that feel incomplete, with sections missing to allow for a place to slot a smart brick in and out as needed, in red-colored bays that stick out from the rest of the design.<\/p>\n

It leads to sets that don\u2019t appeal to adult collectors who are used to paying increasing premiums for Lego, because they\u2019re playsets aimed at younger audiences, and parents and younger audiences who are priced out by the increased costs \u201cSmart Play\u201d adds to Lego\u2014especially so in the case of these newest sets, where you need to buy another pricey set to get the most out of them.<\/p>\n

There are some fun ideas across all these sets, but the issues with \u201cSmart Play\u201d so far seem to persist here in these new sets as much as, if not more, than the initially revealed ones: sets that ask a lot and give very little in return. The five new Lego Star Wars \u201cSmart Play\u201d sets will release alongside the previously revealed sets on March 1, and are available to pre-order<\/a> from Lego now.<\/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":"Earlier this month at CES, Lego unveiled its new \u201cSmart Play\u201d system, a plan to heavily integrate interactive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,11353,270,2140],"class_list":{"0":"post-266873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-lego","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-star-wars"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}