The new brick will make play more interactive for kids and families. Sets with the new brick will release in March, and preorders start in January.

LEGO has announced a huge update to its bricks, which the company is calling "one of the most significant evolutions" in 50 years.

The new sensor-packed Smart Play Brick will land this spring as part of a special Star Wars collection. The update adds interactive lights and sound to the Lego experience—including the minifigs.

The Lego company has not made any major redesigns to its brick since the debut of the modern brick in 1958, so this is pretty big news. But what does it mean? In a continuation of screenless play, Lego is not trying to make the brick something it isn't, in this case, but simply offers an elevated experience for all ages.

The Smart Brick looks very similar to a normal 2x4 Lego brick, but it contains a custom Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chip which is smaller than one of the studs on the brick itself. It’s joined by an accelerometer and a copper coil, and Lego has created its own Play Engine and Neighbor Position Measurement (NPM) system.

The Lego Group unveiled its new SMART Play bricks at CES, the first building sets, featuring Star Wars, are expected to launch in March.

LEGO does not reinvent itself very often. It’s a toy company that has been iterating on the same idea for decades. It patented the LEGO Brick almost 66 years ago, and any piece you buy today will work with one that came out of the first mold in 1958.