Oh, patents! Lego® SMART Play™

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann 

Lego® SMART Play™, winner of the Best in Show and Best Future Tech awards at CES 2026*, has added electronics to Lego® play sets. Most importantly, in response to desiderata, the new Lego® SMART Play™ sets come WITHOUT supplementary screens, batteries, wires, cameras or coding. A feat that took two and a half years to develop, involving a team of more than 300. Engineers, scientists, product designers, video-gaming experts, user-experience specialists, physicists, mathematicians, plus more, who worked together in a very large, top-secret, soundproof room, without windows, called “The Void”.

SMART Play™ Legos® comprise four components, available only in the all-in-one sets, but thereafter compatible with all SMART Play™ Lego® sets: 

1. a smart, 2x4 brick with a miniaturized ASIC chip, essentially comprising a speaker, LEDS, a speech synthesizer, and a proximity sensor**, 
2. two tags, which together with the smart brick form a new positioning system, and 
3. a wireless charger for bricks and tags, 
4. together with the themed and character Lego® SMART Play™ set (Pokémon™ and Star Wars™ for starters to launch the new SMART Play™ system). 

The beauty of the Lego® SMART Play™ system is that it is generative. One smart brick can generate an infinite number of sounds, depending on the tracker or movement of the smart brick. This differs from a database of pre-recorded word sounds. Indeed, the Lego® engineers even devised a new Figlish (Figurine English) language for the sounds that the brick can generate when it is inserted inside a figurine, and which children can interpret as they imagine. The brick comprises a miniaturized sound synthesizer that generates different sounds for every different situation or construction that is built, now and in the future.

More than 25 patents were awarded for the multiple Lego® SMART Play™ inventions. The following US, European (EP) and World Intellectual Property Organization  (WO) patents  are just a few of the Lego® SMART Play™ patents:

• EP3200886B1 – Game system.
• US20250010218A1 - Modular toy system with electronic toy modules.
• US20180071626A1 - Tag reader and system comprising a tag reader.
• US20240335761A1 - Toy construction system with function construction elements.
• US12021394B2 - Toy system having a contactless energy transfer system.
• WO2022101233A1 - Toy system for multiplayer social play.
• WO2026077559A1 - System of interactive toy and/or interactive educational construction elements.
• WO2025157950A1 - Interactive toy system with groups of associated wireless interactive toys.
• WO2020192955A1 - Rechargeable interactive toy.

For Lego® SMART Play™, one wonders who is having the most fun. The engineers who took up the challenge to create a magical modular smart brick, bringing LEGO® to life for generations to come,  or the children whose imaginations are being fired to new heights with an already fun game that has stood the test of time?

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Notes
* CES 2026 – Largest and most influential Computer Electronics Show in the United States. The show is held every year in January in Las Vegas, CA, since 1967.
** The Lego® smart brick is shown being inserted into the Pokémon™ Pikachu character.

Reference
How we made the Lego® SMART Play™ system. Lego.com
https://www.lego.com/en-us/smart-play/article/innovation