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The problem with all powered LEGO stuff is that it ends up being incompatible with whatever the next generation of techy LEGO innovations is. Think of how many incompatible motor systems they’ve made over the years.
One of the fundamentals of LEGO is supposed to be compatibility with every piece that has come before or will come after, and these high tech pieces simply violate that expectation. And I’m saying that as a person who loves hacking on hardware and with powered functions.
Think of how many incompatible motor systems they’ve made over the years
Maybe I'm missing some, but the 9V, Power Functions, and Mindstorms motors were fairly compatible with each other via official LEGO adapters.
Also, Mindstorms as it was on launch is still top tier.
I agree. Its probably hard for Lego since they want to innovate but WE dont want it. We just want bricks.
This seems a little different though no? Like it appears to be a fully contained system that should work as long as you have a smart brick and tags. It doesn’t need to physically interact with the various tech enabled elements so at worst you end up with some plates and minifigs with what appear to be passive electronics inside that still work as normal pieces.
I think what I’m most leery of is that the smart brick itself looks like it has a fully seal battery that isn’t user serviceable which means in a few years these just become e-waste. I hope LEGO has considered that and has a way to replace them.
These look fundamentally different to Powered Functions or Mind Storms for instance which were focused on expanding the capabilities of LEGO to be interactive. The Smart Brick though looks very specifically aimed at enhancing the play pillar of LEGO and not at what most AFL want (in the creativity or building/engineering pillars). This isn’t really for the 16+ audience is my big takeaway, it’s for kids in the same way the Mario interactive figures are for kids mainly.
You could replace batteries in the star wars mini figs with light up sabers, so hopefully you can on the brick too.
I hope that’s true, I’m just saying that they don’t have a good track record of interoperability for smart features.
Upon reading the initial announcement, I was cautiously optimistic. After seeing the CES demo, though, I think it will be a load of fun for kids as is.
Ultimately, though, I think how well it will do will be heavily impacted by how hackable it is. It will eventually be hacked, of that I have no doubt - it's just a matter of how easy and how cheap it is to do. If they used common standards for NFC & the data contained onboard the tags, we might see these used pretty regularly in MOCs - imagine a train layout that plays different sounds and displays different lights as a train moves through a town, GBC modules that react to modified balls with tags in them, or MOCs that add simple movement as a means of triggering custom nature sounds.
Or with the built-in fm synth, a fully modular LEGO synthesizer you can PLAY. How epic would that be!