There's a lot of hype around it like Lego was selling this thing hard
It's fixing it As a Lego child who grew into a Lego parent
I kind of have mixed feelings about Lego the iconic toy company focused on creativity and an
imagination adding Smart features to some of their sets in the form of a smart brick
But I can see the appeal of a new version of Darth Vader's TIE fighter that reacts to how you move and play
Thanks to the smart brick the smart tag and a smart Darth Vader
Everything has smart tech in it now It's just it's weird and lots of people have been talking about this since Lego announced it at CES this year
It's just weird to have Lego the company that is all about you know like not needing all that weird bells and whistles
To add this feature. I mean I feel like it's smacks of
Investor pressure or I don't even know if they have investors. I think they must they must Lego is private company
Legos private so it's not investor pressure. It's something some kind of pressure. Anyway. Oh, look at this
So so this is the the open box right here and here is the smart brick itself
So yeah, it looks like a Lego brick in two parts
Obviously we got this kind of transparent thing on top and the opaque body with the electronics inside
I don't see any way to Like open it because I believe that there is no way to replace the battery if it if it if it dies
It's a got a 45 milliamp hour battery It apparently only lasts 45 minutes and takes a while to charge comes with a USB-C to a
Cable interesting fairly large pad for that little smart brick
It's it's unclear at the moment whether you could charge multiple bricks on this
But it certainly seems like that should be possible given how large this pad is and how small the actual brick is
Okay. Oh, and it lights up. You see that and then when I took it off and made a little sound
Wow Worth it just for that. You cannot buy standalone smart bricks at the moment
They only come in a very limited number of sets which are
Actually quite limited still compared to the functionality that Lego was talking about them having at CES
We'll talk about that more once we get everything built, but um, yeah, there's a bit of controversy around this right now
Anyway, we're gonna build this now and I
Got I got some Lego cred. I had a big giant bucket of Lego as a child
Our Lego pieces at home are organized by color and by size so like big green pieces
Medium-sized green pieces small green pieces. Okay, so I guess I am I'm I am more of a Lego guy than normal people
Oh, this is a smart play guide. There's an instruction manual just for how to do the smart stuff
You do need an app. We have that set up. Oh, it will glow
Green when it's fully charged. It says right here. It's gonna take two hours to charge the brick
And then the rest of this book is just all that stuff. Okay, cool
go
And I gotta say I Didn't think I would ever get to build Lego for my job wish that I wasn't building Lego's most controversial product ever I
Feel like the building is part of the plane That's what makes Lego so cool is that you can build any toy you want and then you can play with a toy
But the building the toy is also really fun. Oh
Smart tag, okay, it's time to put the smart tag on it's got a little picture of Darth Vader's tie on it
It looks like there's very little Electronics or anything in there. Although it it has extra little numbers that aren't there normally. I
actually one of the reviews I read of it, too is that it
Notably does not sound like Star Wars. Oh really, I'll be the judge of that. I'm kind of a Star Wars dork or I was
Before the duck times smart tag on
Okay back to speed building
I've never seen whatever the pieces is before just like a flat paddle fun I
Said we cannot go in there
I
Have like been struggling
And I appreciate the beauty in the complex system
I mean that's the death bed that's the argument for the death penalty, but
Okay We're at the smart brick part. We're still recording everything, right? Yeah
And it's green. Okay into the back right on top of
The of the smart tag here as shown
Whoa
That didn't sound a ton like what I remember the Darth Vader. Oh, yeah, it's reacting though
It seems to know that I'm kind of turning it too because it's a different type kind of sound
Okay, anyway, I kind of wanted to stop doing that now though. Okay, so I'll take the brick out
Okay, and then what does it say? Oh
That's how you shoot the blasters. Okay. Wait, hold on. There is no back to it. What I don't like that
So you you put the smart brick in there and now it's saying that it's it's complete like that
Like you just there's just a big hole in the back of the TIE fighter. We're venting atmosphere
Is that the only way to turn it off is to take the smart brick out that's weird
I did not connect it to the app though. So let's let's try doing that first add your smart bricks
Oh, okay, so you can have two on the charger. There we go. That answers that question smart brick added
Okay, we got the smart brick connected the tie is built except for the big hole in the back
But you know, that's what it is and Brad you finished building
The other the the other parts that do have some interactivity with the whole system
And we will figure out how the whole experience is enhanced
With our resident Lego expert Robert after this message from our sponsor Robert
Were you in there the whole time? Yeah, I had some snacks and
Robert yes, you're a Lego you're a Lego
Big Lego fan. So what do you know about the smart brick? First of all, I've heard bits and pieces
I've heard what pieces
No, so I've heard little bits about it I heard there's a lot of hype around it like Lego was selling this thing hard and then it kind of came out and everybody went
That's it Mmm. Okay. See I I haven't paid attention to it since CES when they announced it
Yeah, there's obviously CES and then they had a bunch of Like content creators promoting it. They had a bunch of like celebrities like they had Anthony Daniels
I hope I see three PO in a promo for it and then it was just like it's here and
Then that was it. Okay, so it's not really up to snuff of what what was expected like yeah
Even just like the sounds that this thing is supposed to make oh just sound terrible. Have you heard it yet?
Yeah, so we did so this is number one thing that was weird is that this is this is the complete bill
It's just got a big chunk missing from the back
Yeah, that's definitely been like one of the biggest Complaints is like it's just the sets just feel incomplete like right Lego has tried to incorporate technology into sets before
You've got like Super Mario hidden side video and those sets at least like on their own felt like
a complete set this just feels like you're missing part of the set and it's like
Stupid expensive right right. It's like I'm paying 70 bucks for an incomplete ship. Yeah, and
So that you can put the smart brick in the back. Oh, yeah, so yeah, you've got Darth Vader in there
So this is one thing I have I have heard is you've got obviously like the tiles in there or the tile on top of the
Smart tag. Yeah, that represents the ship But then you've also got Darth Vader in there and they are supposed to talk and like work with each other
So it's like if you've got two characters next to each other They might talk back and forth or if you've got a character in a ship
You'll have the ship sounds and that character right voice
So I had it I had the smart brick in there and it was making the sounds I didn't have Darth Vader in there
So now Darth Vader's in there. We'll see it. Let's see what he says. Oh
Oh
Okay, that was at least part of the Imperial March So now I haven't done it actually but you see this little tab of the red the red trigger thing pull that
Okay, there we go. I can verify those are not then those are not the tide laser sounds
No, cuz like what if you have a lightsaber, okay? No
Hold on. Oh, right the characters apparently speak, but they don't speak English. Yeah, it's just kind of like simlish or whatever
Yeah, so why I'm Darth Vader, but like instead of saying like Luke. I am your father spoilers
Anyway, oh and you can turn the volume down. We're at the highest volume, which you know, thankfully it's not too loud
Or as a parent I appreciate that the highest volume is not it's not ear-splittingly loud
That's nice charge not registered connected, but then as soon as you take it off there
It's so honestly actually at first I was kind of like wait what I can't even connect to it
Well, it's in the toy, but like now I'm like actually wait This is good because there was concern about your toys being connected to the cloud or something and like recording your like kids
Voices and stuff, but yeah, I mean it's nice to see now that like okay
It is disconnected as soon as you take it off the charger. It's not connected to anything when it's in there
It's just only doing local only stuff. Mm-hmm the one thing that they that does actually that's a sort of a connection
It's if you have multiple of these bricks and that and if you have to have like another set with like another ship
And that they will talk to each other I saw this one video of somebody trying it and they had they had the tie fighter and the the X-wing and they were
They were shooting at each other and that but like the weird thing was like tie fighter could be shooting way over there
And it'll still hit like it just detects that it's like within range not like it's not directional
It's just like if you're within I think it's like supposed to be like 15 feet or something like that right?
Sounds but what were people expecting? They're like it's gonna be like perfect like laser tag like you're gonna point at that like it's oh you missed
And then you like the way that Lego hyped it up. That's kind of where the expectations were
Okay, so I saw were you someone who like saw this and you were like yo, this is hype
No, not really I kind of expected it to flop We've only experienced a tiny fraction of what's possible here. That's just kidding. We've experienced most
I'm gonna reinstall. Oh, hold on. We got to put the
Bubble bubble bubble bubble it sounds like a computer There are some characters from what I've seen that it actually doesn't sound terrible on but when you're expecting Darth Vader to
Come out and you get that that sounds like the probe droid
Darth Vader. Yeah Yeah, the probe droid, but these do something these these interact
Yeah, this is like the repair tool
It's fixing it
That's terrible. Let's put it up here for the mic
It just keeps going if you hold it We suffered a lot of damage in the last bad. It's missing the whole back half of the ship like in theory
This is the color sensor at work. There's a color sensor. So I didn't even think about this, but
The smart brick has an ambient color sensor And that's how it's knowing that this is for repair because this is a green. This is a normal green Lego piece right here
and so we got a green pen and
That's that's wacky Okay, so now so now you need
This is like the refueling sound now in case you all in case you ever wanted to know how Darth Vader's tie
What it sounds like when they refuel it
That's sort of liquid sort of they use liquid fuel
Don't they use like energy cells or something should know this is like a former Star Wars nerd
I'm wondering if we take it off Of the smart tag and then put the colored items beside it
What will to do then no the color doesn't do anything to it if it's not on the smart tag because this is like just a generic smart brick
And it becomes the the tie fighter smart brick when it contacts. That's that smart tag
So like we got the tie fighter here There's a there's an X-Wing and these are kind of like mini
Like that that's like the proportions are off on that It looks like kind of like a mini like a like a mobile game version of an X-Wing
Yeah, a lot of people have compared these to like Four plus or junior sets in terms like their scale in that this I mean
You know, I can see the appeal of this if that works, but not if they're not using the real lightsaber sounds
Like it's got to be like
You know I was pretty good. I know I had to show off my lightsaber
There's gonna be a bunch of different sets with the smart brick But the important distinction is so these ones come with one smart brick this one comes with two
These don't come with any smart brick. They're smart brick compatible. Mmm. That's it
Then like I can only imagine the number of like grandparents and parents like their kids like oh
I really want to get the smart brick. Oh, yeah, see this they're gonna buy it and their kids gonna go
Where's the smart brick? That's confusing and like the fact that like especially for something as big as like the Millennium Falcon like this one
I think it's I think it's a hundred us does not come with a smart brick You have to buy at least another seventy dollar sex
This is the cheapest one that comes with the smart brick and it's 70 bucks, right?
Although if the smart brick came with everything then all of the smart sets would be you know prohibitively expensive
And but this is a way to kind of like roll out the the smart ecosystem
With slightly cheaper sets that just have the smart tags
But it is gonna be it's definitely gonna be gonna be confusing for people buying toys being like is this gonna
Does this gonna make the pu pu in the sounds? Yeah, which I argue
They shouldn't even be thinking about anyway because that's not what Lego was all about
But you know we've talked about that. Yeah as of right now. They don't sell the smart brick on their own
So if you want to get one for one of these you have to buy another set
But as for why they don't sell them separately the only thing I can think of at the moment is like this is the first wave
So it's like maybe that's something they'll eventually do I can imagine them being like all right
It's just gonna be in the norm that this set comes with a smart tag
Because I like the smart tag itself is just this tiny little piece. It's just a tile
Like it looks like it barely has any electronics in it at all It's probably quite cheap to produce a smart as far as like a smart thing goes
So, you know, it's probably fine for them to just kind of throw those in the sets and then start building this ecosystem so that
Eventually people have smart bricks and people have smart tags and but I again
I've made the case that I don't think I like I don't care about that. I don't think it. I don't think we need it
right like That's really what it comes back down to for me
It's all part of like the imagination of having fun with it going around making the the blaster sounds yourself making the ship sounds like
What I like about Lego as a company is that they will continually kind of like explore ideas like this
But I would be lying if I told you that you know, I would
Rather have them instead of doing this, you know, bring back Bionicle you cowards
And not not those weird replacement things you love the hero out hero here factory. No
That Bionicles bring them back do it
So what do you guys think of the Lego smart brick and the kind of like weird way that Lego is rolling it out
Do you have any sets? Do you plan on buying them? Do you want to see Robert come back and do more Lego videos because he loves this stuff?
Yeah, and if you're looking for something else to watch Go watch the ShortCircuit about the Star Wars TV because why not?
Love you. Bye Subscribe ShortCircuit