I'm guessing this is post-patent expiration innovation happening at LEGO these days to counteract the growing number of generics.
New Lego smart-play system
31–40 of 53 posts
Re: New Lego smart-play system
#32This reads like an unbranded version of Lego Mario. Which is absolutely fine by me.
Yes, I thought the same thing.
My son loves Lego Mario and the app. He'll even go through the building instructions of kits he doesn't have just to see how they are built. The instructions in the app are super clear, animated, and the model can be rotated at any step to check whether the real-life model is correctly built.
Going back to paper instructions after using the app is a pain.
Re: New Lego smart-play system
#33I'm very confused by this one. I can't tell what it really does . With Mindstorms, We Do, and Spark, you can build things that interact because you have motors, sensors, remotes, a programmable hub. This... makes noise and flashes lights?
It’s a 2 x 4 Lego brick with a speaker/lightsand custom ASIC built-in, with light and sound sensors, reacting to IOT beacons that allow different sounds or light sequences. And it’s rechargeable like an electric toothbrush. It also has accelerometers that change the sounds as you twist and turn them around. The sounds themselves are generated, with the speaker driven by an onboard synthesiser.
And it's rechargable, like e-waste. >sigh<
Re: New Lego smart-play system
#34All of their replacements for Mindstorms just come across as pieces that should have been added to the line. It's really disappointing that the discontinued it with no real replacement.
Its not mindstorms but Edison is LEGO compatible and is a nice platform. https://meetedison.com/
Re: New Lego smart-play system
#35+1 for the "why not extend the existing range" brigade
Also, another chance to post this old school version:
Re: New Lego smart-play system
#36I'm very confused by this one. I can't tell what it really does . With Mindstorms, We Do, and Spark, you can build things that interact because you have motors, sensors, remotes, a programmable hub. This... makes noise and flashes lights?
It’s a 2 x 4 Lego brick with a speaker/lightsand custom ASIC built-in, with light and sound sensors, reacting to IOT beacons that allow different sounds or light sequences. And it’s rechargeable like an electric toothbrush. It also has accelerometers that change the sounds as you twist and turn them around. The sounds themselves are generated, with the speaker driven by an onboard synthesiser.
The most concrete part I get is that it has a recognition and positioning system built-in, so it can recognize the IDs and relative positions of nearby beacons. Beacons are inside bricks, tags and minifigures. The bricks seem to also have some kind of color sensor to detect the color of nearby normal bricks.
Then it does ... something with that information.
From the promo it almost looked as if that data was fed to an LLM that could then generate an audio response that fits to the play scene. Something like "You are a . You are in a . The vehicle is . What do you say?" (Where the stuff inside the brackets is inferred from the nearby beacons and the rest would be a fixed prompt template)
But that would require the bricks to have an internet connection, and I have no idea if that's the case.
Re: New Lego smart-play system
#37I don't have kids, but if I did, I would probably not go for Lego but for 3D-Printing. It shouldn't be hard to print pieces that can snap together. In all kinds of colors and all kinds of forms. I imagine the adventure of printing new pieces would be a fun thing for the kids and the parents. And when the kids are old enough, they can print pieces on their own. And a bit later design pieces on their own. Would there b…
I actually think what you suggest _would_ be brilliant if there was a printer that printed as nice and detailed parts as Lego does from ABS. The digital ecosystem for that would be crazy.
But.
Modern consumer printers are way better than decade ago but they still sort of suck if you want any fine details.
"It shouldn't be hard to print pieces that can snap together."
It's actually quite hard to print pieces that are functional and look nice.
Modern consumer 3D printers sort of suck for small details still. If all you print are Lego Dublo sized parts. And print them from ABS. You might succeed _sometimes_.
PLA the cheapest default plastic for filaments for extruders loses fit quite fast (I've tried). So ball joints etc will get loose pretty soon.
"Would there be any downside to this approach?"
Well, the adventure currently is the printing part and it's mostly not fun but one of those activities masochistic engineers (like myself) take up as a hobby.
The consumer 3D printers are improving! Maybe one day. But the material physics are not that comforting there.
Re: New Lego smart-play system
#38Someone watched Small Soldiers and mistook it for an instruction manual.
Re: New Lego smart-play system
#39Programmable logic toys like this formed the way I see the world — a system of states, conditional flow between states and the chance to design, understand and debug the system. I had Lego Mindstorms and Gen X had Logo/Turtle. With AI perhaps programmable logic will go the way of toy steam engines and crystal radios, and with it the worldview of those who grew up seeing the world as logic flows
To be clear, the SMART brick is not much of a "programmable logic toy", topping out at "if near X, play U sound".
Your last paragraph is spot on though.
Re: New Lego smart-play system
#40I'm very confused by this one. I can't tell what it really does . With Mindstorms, We Do, and Spark, you can build things that interact because you have motors, sensors, remotes, a programmable hub. This... makes noise and flashes lights?
It’s a 2 x 4 Lego brick with a speaker/lightsand custom ASIC built-in, with light and sound sensors, reacting to IOT beacons that allow different sounds or light sequences. And it’s rechargeable like an electric toothbrush. It also has accelerometers that change the sounds as you twist and turn them around. The sounds themselves are generated, with the speaker driven by an onboard synthesiser.
Yep. The initial marketing video makes it seem like a "brain+motor" super-brick that can somehow turn minifigs into robots and autonomously drive vehicles. But no, it's just a speaker + couple LEDs and a proximity sensor.
It's still a neat toy, but way oversold.