At the beginning of 2026, the LEGO Group rang in the new year with a thrilling announcement that sent waves of excitement through the ranks of the mighty brick’s many fans. In a bold, innovative move, the LEGO Group revealed that it is marrying the most cutting-edge of digital technology with the heart of its classic product to create the new LEGO SMART Play system. With one talented little brick, the SMART Brick, the LEGO Group can, almost by magic, bring responsive light, sound, and immersive interaction to its familiar builds. But, as is always the case with the LEGO Group, the core of this exciting new path remains what is always at center for the brand, a screenless physical play experience; one where modernization does not mean erasing the beauty of what is, but merely enhancing the already incredible present to bring it to new heights of joy, fun, and value.
At CES 2026, Nerdist sat down with some of the LEGO Group’s key executives, Tom Donaldson, SVP & Head of Creative Play Lab at the LEGO Group and Mike Ilacqua, Head of Product, LEGO Star Wars at the LEGO Group, as well as their partner from Disney, Derek Stothard, Director of Global Licensing, to chat about the new LEGO SMART Play system and the exciting LEGO Star Wars sets that would kick off the new product line. And the trio were more than excited to invite Nerdist‘s readers, who we know are loyal fans of the LEGO Group’s work, into the world of LEGO SMART Play.
The first thing that’s CRITICAL to understand about LEGO SMART Play, shares Donaldson, is that LEGO SMART Play is not “THE right next evolution for LEGO bricks, but it’s certainly A Great innovation” for the LEGO world. Meaning that LEGO SMART Play won’t take over the LEGO Group’s offerings, it will simply diversify them in a whole new way to give kids (and kids at heart) many new options for physical play, options that are becoming more and more rare.
Donaldson goes on to share, “We see it as a new dimension to what we’re already doing that creates new opportunities, not THE pivot or THE opportunity. And I think that’s really important.” This sentiment should offer some ease to long-time fans of LEGO products, who love so much the work already being done, because LEGO SMART Play isn’t aiming to replace anything already happening in the world of LEGO bricks; it’s merely opening up a tremendously cool new place for some LEGO Group products to live.
And it’s not something the LEGO Group takes lightly. “The idea of LEGO SMART Play probably came about eight years ago,” Donaldson muses, making this announcement almost a decade in the making. the LEGO Group thought long and hard about how this technological innovation might be implemented, with one central thought driving the evolution. And that’s keeping the brick and physical play at the heart of any new creation the LEGO Group would develop, even when incorporating technology. “That was right there from the start.”
Donaldson confirms this ethos never wavered, saying “I think if I go back to the original slides, there was a phone with a little cross across it. We certainly didn’t want screens. It was always physical play, and it was always the physical brick coming alive. And it was always something where we wanted an alternative to purely visual stimulation, to bring to life that really hands-on, minds-on kind of play that’s been true to the brand for a long period of time.”
But just what is it about physical play that’s so important to the LEGO Group? Donaldson brings it all back to who we are, not just as children, but as humans; that unique chord that playing with LEGO bricks strikes inside us all. He shares, “The reality is as humans, there’s many, many aspects to us, but with physical play, you’re using the whole body, you’re using it in many different ways. You’re also using the whole room. You can hide behind a sofa; you’re using all of your assets in an integrated way. I think it leads to a lot more fun, if I’m honest. I think it leads to a lot more imagination because you’ve got so much more to work with and so many different kinds of ways to work with it.” And what LEGO SMART Play, Brick, Tags, and Minifigures so cleverly do is heighten this imagination that LEGO bricks already so beautiful invoke, taking it to even greater heights.
And kids (and anyone else who engages in play) really strive to be stimulated in such a way. Donaldson notes, “Kids have a need for social play. They are also becoming increasingly keen for all their play experiences to be dynamic, to change and rotate, and that sort of thing. And they have a real desire for agency, where what they do counts in what they play. And we sort of put those together and just figured out that a type of interactivity that was a system where they could be incredibly imaginative and really brought to life the LEGO system that they had. It was an opportunity to add a new dimension and a new category of opportunity.”
The LEGO SMART Brick brings technology into play in a way that does not erase physical play, but instead uses technology to open it all the way up. The reactivity of the brick and all its interactive elements REQUIRE the physical play to operate, in fact, it will not work right without them. And with no pre-recorded elements, no prescribed rules, a strongly reactive system, and a good amount of both randomness and rational reactions, it’s the play and the imagination of the user that MAKES LEGO SMART Play function.
Talking of the new LEGO SMART Play Star Wars sets, the first sets in this new system, Disney’s Derek Stothard explains that LEGO SMART Play “opens up the whole galaxy. The whole galaxy is a big playground, and one of the things that happens with this system is that when you start playing with it, you learn over time how it all ties together. The Smart Brick recognizes so many LEGO Minifigures that are within its reach, and it knows what they are, and it knows what they’re doing, and kids are able to figure that out, so they can create their own new stories, and they can just make them happen in real time. It’s very open-ended. It’s not scripted. They can just invent their own Star Wars stories, and that’s fantastic.”
And it is FANTASTIC. Fantastic for purveyors of imagination, but also fantastic on a more practical level.
When new visions are introduced to a brand with as powerful a legacy as the LEGO Group’s, questions about cost and change naturally arise. But LEGO SMART Play innovates in more ways than just the obvious inclusion of technology. LEGO SMART Play inherently makes playing with LEGO bricks a more social experience, filled with more discoveries. And when play contains both these aspects, one important variable soars: the time spent using the toy.
Mike Ilacqua of the LEGO Group builds on the sentiment, noting, “We’re seeing kids play longer and LEGO SMART Play is creating more opportunity to come back to your LEGO Star Wars. So it allows you to continue to build, continue to discover, and that just means more play for kids, which is what we love about the possibilities LEGO SMART Play creates.” It’s also important to note that sets are meant to be played with, specially designed to come back together easily if any parts are accidentally snapped off or broken during play, bolstering play even further.
And we all know what more playtime means for a LEGO set: greater value for consumers. LEGO SMART Play sets are already very reasonably priced, but when factoring in the much greater amount of time kids and adults alike will play with them and how they can provide play not just for one person but for many at once, the value of each set is astronomical. And that value increases even further when one takes into account that different LEGO SMART bricks and tags can be exchanged between sets to create an endless array of new and fun possibilities for any given SMART Play LEGO set.
As The LEGO Group’s Tom Donaldson says, the heart of the LEGO SMART Play system are “not the moments that we designed. It’s when kids start to really play. When you see kids’ imagination, and they start to say, ‘What can I do with this?'” A question that has an innumerable number of answers.
Even discovering all the mysteries that one LEGO SMART Play set has to offer will have kids (and adults!) returning to the sets over and over. Wisely, The LEGO Group wants its fans to play their way into understanding all the cool sound, light, and immersive effects a set offers. And that means, you won’t get a full list of everything a LEGO SMART Brick or set can do at the outset. And perhaps, only the kismet of play will unlock some effects.
Mike Ilacqua shares, “We’ve taken a lot of thought into the onboarding experience. So creators will be led through how the platform works, how to build the sets, and they will learn little different interactions along the way, but we have not spoiled the entire list. And really, it’s just to help them understand how the system plays. But what’s great about it, it’s so intuitive. I mean, we haven’t actually had to really walk the kids through it in many details. It’s just very intuitive, and the kids get it, and that’s where you really see it enhancing the physical play and just kind of sparking even more imagination.”
Still, we all want a little hint of what the SMART Play system will do when we get it into our hands, and Ilacqua reveals, “One of the fundamental Easter eggs of LEGO SMART Play is that if you actually put a couple SMART Minifigures together around a SMART Brick, they’ll start having a little gibberish conversation.” We saw this in action and it’s truly adorable. Additionally, Derek Stothard chimes in that LEGO SMART Play will bring to life “more and more of that humor that LEGO sets are famous for. So much fun and humor will be unlocked with the SMART Play sets.”
When it comes to the first LEGO Star Wars SMART Play sets specifically, Ilacqua reveals “There’s all these little interactions that can happen when you create the different combinations, because as you build your collection, there’s so many different varieties that you can unearth, but certainly there’s some fan favorites I’d say, especially for kids, it’s exciting to be able to have an interactive LEGO Star Wars Lightsaber battle, complete with Lightsaber sounds, and those kinds of enhancements now.” To that we are Nerdist agree it’s certainly exciting for “kids,” read: every adult ever.
Then, of course, there’s one true crowd-pleaser of a Star Wars effect that everyone can’t help but talk about, shares Ilacqua. And that’s “The reaction you get by putting the LEGO SMART Brick on the back of the Emperor’s throne. It plays a really awesome tune, and I think fans are going to love it.” This particular musical response lives in the new LEGO Star Wars: Throne Room Duel & A-Wing SMART Play Set. And yes, the SMART Brick-ified throne will play you “The Imperial March.” (And, just to tease even more, it’s not the only emotional musical cue you can unlock in the new LEGO Star Wars SMART Play sets.)
Ilacqua shared that this SMART Play effect was a no brainer for the LEGO Group and Lucasfilm, offering, “One of the first things we started talking about is ‘What does this platform enable?’ It enables sound, responsiveness, action, reaction, and what’s more iconic than some of the music and the sounds from the Star Wars Galaxy. So this gave us an opportunity to leverage the onboard synthesizers and an opportunity to bring these sounds to life for kids.” Again, Ilacqua loves to use that word, “kids,” but we think he’ll find he means a very general definition.
SMART Minifigures speak in a gibberish language that evokes more of a universal feeling than actual, understandable sentences, so don’t expect any Star Wars actor voice cameo in the LEGO sets. But Star Wars sounds, such as R2-D2’s beeping, will translate into LEGO SMART Play with full authenticity. And additionally, Ilacqua confirms that the LEGO Group “worked really closely with [their] partners at Lucasfilm to make sure the SMART Star Wars Minifigures would have the character traits that you expect. So some get scared more easily, some are a little bit darker. So that’s really one of the exciting things about using the Star Wars Galaxy to being able to bring those known character traits into the sets for the first time.”
And these SMART Minifigures with distinct personalities may extend beyond LEGO. Donaldson offers a little preview, although he can’t say too much, “The platform itself provides many, many opportunities for a rich range of characters with a rich range of different personalities. We’ve really thought hard about that, but in terms of exactly how we’re using them, again, I’m not ready to announce that.” And that holds true as we look at the future of the LEGO SMART Play platform over all.
At this time, the three new LEGO Star Wars SMART Play sets announced stand as the only confirmed pieces of the system so far. But Donaldson agrees that, “It won’t surprise anybody that we have plans that go beyond those.” While he can’t confirm anything about more sets or different SMART Play set IPs, only reiterating, “We do have plans,” we at Nerdist got a sneak preview of a Star Wars Cantina build, complete with a working stage and sleepy Dewback that looks like it might belong to a LEGO Star Wars SMART Play set coming soon. Ilacqua adds, “We’re really excited about the potential.”
But at the end of the day, what does The LEGO Group want its fans to ultimately understand about the product today? Ilacqua beautifully summarizes, “I’d like them to walk away knowing that this is really an evolution of the LEGO system in play and it’s really an enhancement of everything that you love about LEGO building today. And it’s just giving kids more agency to play. LEGO SMART Play is giving them more opportunity for imagination. And from a LEGO Star Wars standpoint, it’s really building upon 25 years of close collaboration with our partners at Lucasfilm, epic storytelling, and really being able to create your own adventures and your own stories. And we just think that this new LEGO SMART Play platform just enhances that to a great effect.”
Donaldson concludes with a thought that perfectly captures The LEGO Group‘s ethos, “At the end of the day, what we’re excited about is how kids use the platform.”
As the conversation winds down, Donaldson offers a beautiful anecdote about bringing the LEGO SMART Play system to life. Of all the moments of play, this one is what stood out to him the most. He shares with a laught, “So we had a test. It was actually an in-home test very many years ago, and there was a toilet, and we noticed that one kid played with the toilet for 27 minutes, nonstop, just making farting noises, and it’s like, it’s just funny. It’s just great. Everybody will like their thing in great ways.”
And though 27 minutes of farting noises may sound like just a silly story on the face of it, at its heart, it shows just how beautifully the LEGO SMART Play system connects with its users. It makes the sets invaluable to them in their play, whether they’re spending hours farting or soaring through the skies of a galaxy, far, far away.
The LEGO Group’s first SMART Play sets are now available for pre-order. They will release on March 1, 2026.
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