Powered Up: some info on the future of the LEGO motorization ecosystem

On the occasion of Fan Media Days that took place online a few days ago, LEGO was telling us about the future of the home motorization ecosystem Powered Up and unveiled some avenues for the future of this set of components which allows certain products to come to life and extend the possibilities for play or education.

The manufacturer has understood that it is becoming necessary to guarantee a certain sustainability to this ecosystem of physical components and applications to obtain the support and the confidence of consumers and is actively working on the regrouping of all these elements under one and the same. banner: the official application Powered Up. All the components, including the elements of the Mindstorms universe, can therefore eventually be controlled and potentially programmed via this application, with the exception of the DUPLO Hub.

Products that until now had a dedicated application such as LEGO Star Wars sets 75253 Boost Droid Commander et 17101 Boost Creative Toolbox will be integrated into the application when the time comes to stop their marketing and to ensure the follow-up of the software part, but LEGO does not guarantee that all the original functionalities will be transferred.

Even if the grouping of all the more or less interactive products within a single application, the development of which will be monitored over time, is good news for the future of the various products concerned, it could only be a question of transfer of basic functions and the user will undoubtedly lose some specificities of the original product in the process.

Other products, such as sets 10273 Haunted Houses, 10277 Crocodile Locomotive, 21323 Grand Piano or even 71044 Disney Train and Station, more or less interactive but whose functionalities did not justify the creation of a dedicated control interface when they were marketed, are already integrated into the application. They will therefore be gradually joined by products which until now have benefited from a dedicated application.

As for the physical elements of the Powered Up ecosystem, no new components have been presented but LEGO confirms the arrival of additional products this year, no doubt via the launch of the novelties of the LEGO Technic range scheduled for the month of October.

Another important file LEGO is working on: the visual overhaul of the programming system based on numerous icons, some of which are often difficult to interpret. LEGO promises that this evolution will be available by the end of the year, let's hope that these changes are not only aesthetic and that the pictograms of some icons become a little more explicit.

The manufacturer also announces that it is working on the possibility of doing without a smartphone or a tablet to take advantage of the functionalities of a product: this emancipation will go through the availability of virtual machines which should in principle make it possible to program actions and then send the sequence to the hub which will execute it. There is no question for the moment of a physical controller in the form of a possible remote control which could receive and store these predefined sequences.

Here too, the durability of a "hard" programmed product would be better assured over time and the implementation of this functionality should pave the way for further automation of certain combinations of actions. LEGO was also talking about the concept of Behavior Building, an idea that would allow, for example, the youngest to enjoy their robots without going through laborious preliminary programming phases, this is already the case for certain models of the LEGO Boost ecosystem.

In the area of ​​purely cosmetic innovations, LEGO promises a visual evolution of the control interface via the addition of new widgets, some of which are based on LEGO parts, and some customization elements such as the theme representing the "painting board "of an electric vehicle.

Finally, the manufacturer admits that all these products are sorely lacking in documentation, even if the user community has long produced many tools that allow you to take advantage of the programming interface. LEGO promises tutorials, contextual support and extensive documentation of the programming interface. It took a long time, but LEGO seems to understand that the potentially educational aspect of some products does not necessarily mean the complexity of their use.

Upon arrival, we feel that LEGO has understood the need to guarantee the longevity and accessibility of these products which offer a certain level of interactivity. It will always be necessary to have a relatively recent smartphone on hand to take advantage of all the features offered, but the desire to group the digital portion under a single banner seems to me likely to reassure those who were worried about the gradual abandonment of applications dedicated to each of these products. It will remain to verify what really remains of the initial interactivity specific to the products which will be gradually transferred to the Powered Up application.