When leaks first teased the LEGO smart brick, I hated it. The appeal of the building block system to me has always been its low technology – so a digital brick with flashing lights, sensors, and a speaker just feels wrong.
Then when the smart brick made its CES 2026 debut, my opinion changed.
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Now that I’ve built a set of clever bricks for Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter, I’m even more sold on the appeal of clever block toys, I wish they were less expensive.
Watch it open
Lego at its core
I forgot the smart brick for a second, this building is the best in that child-friendly play concept I’ve ever touched.
With only 473 pieces, this thing shouldn’t take too long to build (it took the two of us about 45 minutes, but that was full of lots of distracting conversations and banter), and once it’s completely assembled you don’t have Darth Vader and his spaceship you have a simple rebel base that you can complete with a canon and a fighter jet – to start making stories full of just one War.
Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter achieves a good balance of detail while still being an accessible weight and size for a child to move around, and in case of any accidents, the clever color coordination between the parts of the ship will ensure that you can easily reassemble a broken TIE Fighter.
The lack of detail, however, and the open back (so that the smart brick can be added and removed when needed) means this is definitely not a Lego set to sit on your shelf. It’s designed to be played with – flying, breaking, combining, and exploding all the time.
The smart brick elevates this identity without detracting from Lego’s core appeal.
It works by detecting NFC elements on special plates and minifigures, which it configures to make certain sounds and turn on its lights based on what it detects. So when placed in the right position on Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter, it will assume it’s inside the Sith Lord’s hands, play snippets of the Imperial March, and make TIE combat sounds when you take off and fly the ship around.
The brick will also tune its side color sensor to make laser sounds when it sees red interior panels, blue fuel pump filling sounds, and repair clanking sounds when it detects a green hammer.
The sound quality isn’t great, but it does a good job of creating the atmosphere of a Star Wars ship while leaving room for you to add your own effects and imagination. For example, Darth Vader can make a few sounds, but you will need to speak for him, and the elements of rebellion are not the combination of smart bricks.
Because these pieces are all standard Lego bricks as well, that means if you want to redesign Vader’s ship or combine it with other pieces in your collection, you can totally do it and still use the creative elements.
On a final note, I also love the accessibility of the smart brick charger. The big yellow pad will be easy to find where it pinches, and when the charging pad is connected, it will wirelessly add fuel to the brick – you just have to place it in the main charging tray.
As you can see in our video, Josie Watson and I had a hot build this set. It was so much fun, and if I were a kid, this would be one of my favorite toys.
I’m excited to see how the smart brick evolves with new combinations – during our shoot, I kept thinking about the smart bricks in the Lego City sets – and I wonder if Lego could offer customization using programmable NFC features.
The only downside at the moment is the price.
Licensed Lego sets, like those in its Star Wars line, already come with a small premium, and the smart brick adds another layer of cost, meaning you get a much lower price tag. For Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter, that’s $69.99 / £59.99 / AU$99.99.
But despite the high cost, the smart brick is a great addition to the Lego ecosystem.
Of course, if you’re a builder who prefers larger sets with better detail and precision, these smart bricks are just not for you. But parents looking to buy their children a new toy may find that this is exactly what they are looking for.
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