At the biggest Consumer Electronics Show of the year (CES 2026), LEGO has taken the showfloor by revealing LEGO SMART Play, a way to bring bricks to life.
As CES 2026 continues forward, more innovations continue to arrive on the showfloor, showcasing what’s to come in 2026 and beyond in technology. A surprise announcement has been revealed by LEGO called LEGO SMART Play. LEGO SMART Play is technology-based, and it brings LEGO creations to life like never before. This new platform is channelled through a special brick called the LEGO SMART Brick, and it is equipped with a custom-made chip that measures smaller than a standard LEGO stud and carries “more than twenty world-firsts” in patented technology.
The idea behind LEGO SMART Play is that players can create their own moving images and short videos using their LEGO SMART playsets, very much like The LEGO Movie (but in bite-sized clips). The LEGO SMART Brick is packed with technologies that bring play to life, including sensors, accelerometers, light sensing and a sound sensor alongside a miniature speaker and much more. The brick also has easy, fast charging, to keep fans building and not waiting to make a creation. Below, consumers can check out the SMART Play trailer unveiled at CES 2026 to see the technology in action.
CES 2026: LEGO SMART Play Three Key Components
- The SMART Brick – A 2×4 LEGO brick that recognizes SMART Tags and SMART Minifigures. It also has a built-in accelerometer which knows how it is being moved through the air, and brings LEGO creations to life.
- The SMART Tags – These small tiles tell the SMART Brick what it should become, to help it play back with you smartly.
- The SMART Minifigures – When placed next to a SMART Brick, you’ll discover how each SMART Minifigure reacts differently to its environment with unique sounds, moods and reactions – all of which are played through the SMART Brick’s onboard speaker/synthesizer system.
When placed on top of or close to a SMART Tag, the SMART Brick becomes whatever the SMART Tag tells it to. This means it can be a helicopter one second, a dinosaur in another, and a car the next. In a nutshell, LEGO SMART Play leaves the creativity to the players, no matter how ‘out there’ the idea is. Alongside CES 2026’s LEGO SMART Play system, LEGO has brought three brand-new LEGO Star Wars sets compatible with the system. These sets make the battle come to life, allowing fans to recreate iconic scenes and make new ones. Each set comes with
- LEGO Star Wars SMART Play: Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter building set – Set number: 75421, Pcs: 473. This set comes with 1x LEGO SMART Brick, 1x LEGO SMART MINIFIGURE featuring Darth Vader, and 1x SMART TAG featuring the TIE Fighter. Priced at $69.99.
- LEGO Star Wars SMART Play: Luke’s Red Five X-wing building set – Set number: 75423, Pcs: 584. This set comes with 1x LEGO SMART Bricks, 2x LEGO SMART MINIFIGURES featuring Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, and 5x SMART TAGS featuring the X-wing, Imperial turret, transporter, command center and R2-D2 accessories. Priced at $89.99.
- LEGO Star Wars SMART Play: Throne Room Duel & A-wing building set – Set number: 75427, Pcs: 962. This set comes with 2x LEGO SMART Bricks, 3x LEGO® SMART MINIFIGURES featuring Luke Skywalker, Emperor Palpatine, and Darth Vader, and 5x SMART TAGS featuring an A-wing, throne, Death Star turret and Lightsaber duels (2x tags). Priced at $159.99.
All of the new LEGO SMART Play sets unveiled at CES 2026 can be pre-ordered straight from the official LEGO site starting on January 9 (for release on March 1st). CES 2026 is in full swing, with innovations ranging from gaming laptops to other innovations presented at CES 2026. The CES 2026 coverage isn’t over, and fans can stay tuned with all of the CES 2026 news, including HP’s Omni line and Belkin innovations, right here at CGMagazine.
