Night Mode: more information

Well, this gives a bit more perspective now. It wasn't the best idea of LEGO to copy the exact same content of a kit on the back as what the company has. That why I knew it was from LMB. I also hope LEGO & Brickstuff can resolve any issues. Regulatory aside Brickstuff was the first. No patent filed, too expensive, comprehendable. Glad the Lead User Lab Team noticed the controversy.

Oops. That is a bit of a rookie error.

This, alongside the acquisition of Bricklink, makes TLG look a bit ... greedy

Lego's statement says “To clarify and hopefully reassure everyone here, those products are a concept test, it’s not something that will go into the market in that current state. "

But if read both statements correctly, they are using the stolen IP from a company (Brickstuff) whom they already informed they don't want to partner with. That is lower than low. Maybe it's an honest error. But to tell a company you don't want to partner with their products, then use their design in your pilot program display?...wow!

We all know there is more than enough interest in lighting models to make this a huge deal. I'm among the many who are hoping for something relatively inexpensive which can be expanded and customized. Also hoping for a solution to all of those fiddly wires, such as TLG working w/the good folks at iBrix and Brickstuff who have come up w/some really good technology. Fingers crossed for a bright (pun intended) future for all.

Edit after reading statement from Brickstuff: not cool TLG, not cool.

That last picture (with the Mustang set) I find funny because the rear quarter panel of the Mustang has a part missing (and the part is sitting literally right next to the car).

Lego has made lights for trains for ages, it can’t be that controversial that they might make them for other sets.
I’d like a pack of about 50 streetlights please. With a controller. I know I could get something like that elsewhere but an official set, quality tested for playability, would be nice

I would be interested in this but probably 1. only limited to my Winter Village, especially if you can link them together to switch on / off together and 2. if they somehow figure out a way to completely conceal wiring. For instance, in some of the promo images the wiring is wound up and around the lamp post...not acceptable to me, especially at the Light My Bricks* price. If LEGO wants to seriously do this I think they need to build the contacts into the baseplates and elements, such as lamp posts and christmas trees. I'm sure this would be cost prohibitive but it would make for a clean look.

I was hopping for this for a long time.

i-Brix is the way to go in the long run. Wireless lighting is going to be far safer and easier for kids to build with. I supported them on Kickstarter and I still have not gotten anything, but it is game-changing. It was much harder to do than wired lighting and it is only a few people that are doing it.
I think they have patents for it, now. Lego should buy it or license it and take it to the next level. They need to go from a baseplate to a small module that combines the battery and transceiver. You can stick the module into the vehicle so that it lights up the i-Brix and you can play with the vehicle.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1426110532/i-brix-wireless-lighting-system-for-lego-building

@larsnelson said:
"i-Brix is the way to go in the long run. Wireless lighting is going to be far safer and easier for kids to build with. I supported them on Kickstarter and I still have not gotten anything, but it is game-changing. It was much harder to do than wired lighting and it is only a few people that are doing it.
I think they have patents for it, now. Lego should buy it or license it and take it to the next level. They need to go from a baseplate to a small module that combines the battery and transceiver. You can stick the module into the vehicle so that it lights up the i-Brix and you can play with the vehicle.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1426110532/i-brix-wireless-lighting-system-for-lego-building
"

Agreed, they just need to get their act together. The looong wait and poor excuses for slow release is killing their credibility.

I've read this and the Brickstuff article. Unless I'm really missing a huge part of the chain of events, I'm certainly not buying a light kit from Lego.

I don't agree with @DrGenie and others that this makes LEGO look greedy... it makes sense for them to want to bring the same level of quality to other areas of the LEGO hobby (for kids and adults) that already exists in the bricks themselves. LEGO has underserved both second-hand bricks and lighting, for which there's clearly there's a desire (consumer desire, for better or worse, being synonymous with a market that can be capitalized). I think it's great LEGO is listening to us, their customers and fans, and is gauging interest and reaction to an initial idea to make sure the final product will be well received and what we actually want.

I'm sympathetic with Brickstuff because it's a shame to innovate something and then have it be copied... but if they don't have a patent, they don't really have a basis for objection. And as @benbacardi said, they might not have even done anything patentable (which is to say, a novel or non-obvious innovation): LEGO has been running wires to lights inside their models (particularly trains, as others have said) for decades.

As a physicist, there limited numbers of ways to create light with leds like this. People can claim what they want, but all those systems will look damn similar. I really doubt this is patentable. And who they source from is still irrelevant at this point: it's still R&D, and it'll change with time.

It's a tough thing, and I can sympathize with both sides. All that LEGO wanted to do was to understand the market for lighting systems for LEGO products, and the easiest way to do that is to use a simple proof-of-concept system that already seems to fit the criteria of what people want in a lighting system. Right now, it's not worth The LEGO Group's time and resources to develop their own system if the project is in the research phase, so it makes sense to buy a pre-made kit as a simple demonstration (once LEGO has established that there is a sustainable market, then LEGO can make their own system).

At the same time, I understand how Brickstuff would be frustrated that the specific system used for demonstration was a "copycat competitor" of their products, and I'm sure I would be too if I was in their shoes.

I think what's important to remember is that LEGO is just trying to understand the market. The non-LEGO elements used here seem to be for demonstration and research purposes only and not for specific product or company promotion.

What I find most interesting is how quickly the typical consumer chooses to side with a smaller company that has grown by piggybacking off of the success of a larger company when that larger company starts to expand into that smaller companies supposed ‘domain’.

The lighting sets created and sold by whoever does seem to be target marketed to LEGO sets, correct? To the point where the lighting product is almost dependent on the LEGO models themselves for the lighting product to be successful. Does that seem like a reasonable statement?

I dunno...it just seems to me to be, kinda complicated with no real easy ‘side’ or answer. In anything like this relationship there are going to be questions re: business ethics.

Can't say Lego is ripping off any company. Lego had light and sound bricks in the late 80s. There was battery box and (modified) regular plates (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=4758&idColor=1) that had metal on the underside so when you attached the plates to the battery box (https://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemInv.asp?S=6780-1)/light Brick (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=4771&idColor=1)/Sound brick the current was carried to the Light or sound bricks.

Of course this method isn't feasible today as you need a lot of connecting plates to reach the lights throughout the set. Even I-brix is just modern day upgrade

If LEGO just made a small battery box that could power the LED lights from Power Functions, instead of pratting around with all this App-controlled garbage, then this wouldn't even be an issue.

I’ve stayed well clear of 3rd party lighting kits - they look amateurish and messy at best. IF LEGO release lighting kits I think it’s safe to assume the only similarity between a LEGO lighting kit and what’s available now will be poles apart

That does not at all look very user-friendly. Certainly not friendly to kids under 12 I would think. They should just bring back the old light and sound plates, update them with LED and maybe USB programmable sounds you could upload. 6780 XT Starship remake...

There seems to be a fair bit of misunderstanding in these comments. Brickstuff isn't accusing Lego of using a similar design without their permission; they're accusing them of using an IDENTICAL one. That's a huge difference - it means that the vast majority of the work done in making this product technically viable was done by Brickstuff, and it's now being used by other companies to make profits without their say-so.

It seems that Brickstuffs concerns come down to two main parts.

1. That Lego will take business away from them by producing their own official kits.

2. That the prototype Lego is shown off is from a competitor of Brickstuff, allegedly copying their product and designers.

My views on this are as follows.

1. Well, competition is healthy. Sorry Lego is a bigger player than you, but also, I would never use Brickstuffs products - I'm a Lego purist. I either want to use official Lego electronics parts or I don't light my models at all.

2. This is more complex. As Brickstuff states, patenting is expensive, so they didn't do it. However, in my opinion, to not patent your creation, especially if your business hinges on it, is foolish. To complain that a competitor is taking business away from you by selling a clone product when you didn't want to invest in protecting it is shows that either a) You're cheap, b) You didn't believe enough in your product to want to protect it, or c) You want to have your cake and eat it too. None of it is a good look.

Saying that, I also don't think Lego should have shown the product off in this form. We know from Lego's product standards they would never release a product like this. Exposed wires and solder? Bare LED connections? Clip battery box (when Powered Up uses screws)? This is just not what it would look like.

It's really lazy of Lego to use another companies product to demonstrate their potential product in this way. It's also cheap - clearly its a way to get around spending R&D costs to get user feedback without spending any real money. So any confusion caused by this is entirely Lego's fault.

So I sympathise a little with Brickstuff in that its disappointing for them that a) Someone cloned them and b) Lego chose someone else, but its a lesson to do due diligence and invest in your product. But also Lego should be better than this. Stop being cheap, spend some real money to develop a prototype.

@woosterlegos said:
"Lego's statement says “To clarify and hopefully reassure everyone here, those products are a concept test, it’s not something that will go into the market in that current state. "

But if read both statements correctly, they are using the stolen IP from a company (Brickstuff) whom they already informed they don't want to partner with. That is lower than low. Maybe it's an honest error. But to tell a company you don't want to partner with their products, then use their design in your pilot program display?...wow!"

That's what they always do and a good example is the famous "Lego Ideas" using non approved designs from people as their own designs.

@Mr_Hobbles said:
" As Brickstuff states, patenting is expensive, so they didn't do it. However, in my opinion, to not patent your creation, especially if your business hinges on it, is foolish. To complain that a competitor is taking business away from you by selling a clone product when you didn't want to invest in protecting it is shows that either a) You're cheap, b) You didn't believe enough in your product to want to protect it, or c) You want to have your cake and eat it too. None of it is a good look."

Its absolutely disgusting to suggest that a small business not spending potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to patent something that's probably not patentable to begin with, in the dozens of countries they sell to, is being cheap. They literally DONT HAVE the money to do that. That's not being cheap, thats not bankrupting yourself on patent fees.

@magmafrost said:
"Its absolutely disgusting to suggest that a small business not spending potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to patent something that's probably not patentable to begin with, in the dozens of countries they sell to, is being cheap. They literally DONT HAVE the money to do that. That's not being cheap, thats not bankrupting yourself on patent fees."

It's not disgusting. It's the way the world works. If your design or product is unique enough to be marketable, you go through the patent process to protect it. Is it potentially expensive? Sure. But it's designed that way to stop everyone patenting every tiny insignificant thing. If their product is that unique that they're going to hinge their businesses success on it, then they absolutely put in the effort.

You did raise another point though - "...trying to patent something that's probably not patentable to begin with". If it's not patentable to begin with, then it's not unique enough to warrant it. Crassly speaking, hooking up some LED's to some wires and a battery box via the equivalent of a patch panel is hardly unique, and is barely a step up from my own amateur efforts with electronics. and microcontrollers.

Which only just goes to reinforce the necessity of the patent process. Otherwise someone would have tried to patent soldering a few wires to an LED and a battery box (and if they have already tried, I can only assume they've been shot down by the patent office. Phew.)

I was at LegoWorld CPH today, and can report the following:

1: There is NO sets on display with this lighting installed.
2: It's a 'TestZone-Only' thing, sadly there was no timeslots available, so I could not get a close-up view myself.
3: I talked to the Lead User Lab people there, and they told me that it's "a rough prototype, just to get user feedback" and "we still do not have any set plans to do this, we are just looking for end-user input". They also told me that they were overwhelmed by the online reactions, this TestZone initiative have started.

It sounded to me, as they were still in talks with IP owners like Brickstuff about the situation.

@izx said:
' ...The Brickstuff Medium article now says: "We’re still in discussion with the Lab about fair compensation as a result of their appropriation and endorsement for their prototypes of the designs we created."

Sounds like LEGO's going to make a one-time payment just to make this controversy go away." '

At least everyone is talking to everyone else. Since there's clearly plenty of time remaining before Lego can demonstrate that *any* system meets its stringent requirements for reliability and safety, they ought to be able to find a reasonable settlement with companies that have put time and hard work into these issues--even if their solutions are not patented, or patentable.

And a "one-time payoff" is an established, and--if properly negotiated--ethical solution to business situations like this.

It's sounding more & more someone is trying to create a controversy in the hopes of building up more support for their business, probably in the hope it will translate into more purchases, by creating an "it's us or them" mentality in the community (with the "them" being TLG & all the other companies that offer similar products).

@backtobricks RE Bricklink, I hadnt noticed Brickarms had been removed. Swinehunds! Lego is turning into a typical greedy American company. (I know its currently Danish but when they began accepting leadership roles from outside the Kristansen family I knew this sort of thing would happen).
Lego Group 1955 - "Only the best"

Lego Group 2020 - "Only for Profit"

Company checklist:

If a CEO cant afford their expensive yacht because the profit went down 1%, sack 3000 workers!

Take over any competition like creating roller coaster tracks, banning Brickarms weapons and 'test the waters' for potential lighting kits.

Balderdash! Why couldnt they just post a query to lego fans, maybe ask this great website (Brickset) instead of creating a 'test' box for 'conversation starters?" WTH??

@Brickchap For days I was thinking the same.
Beside of the controversy about from who they used the product, I was thinking about the way they "tested".

LEGO is such a company that never heard about focus groups?

Or kindly ask guys like HUW to "host" a survey or something. We would be happily answer like we now do it for free in hundreds of comments (and more people would ask in a survey than comment in an article).

Or be nice and give a free set to 200 LEGO fans on Brickset and other sites and got the best views of your in the end CLIENTS.

No, put an empty box on a shelves and then react "surprise" like a beginner about a big reaction from people about a product (lights) missing for years from your portfolio in an age when small or big screens are everywhere, not a simple light.

I could speak for hours about a lot of their mistakes (I hope they will hire me).

I just don't see what's so unique about Brickstuff. Anyone with a soldering iron and basic understanding of electronics can do the same thing DIY for much much less. The fact that they charge $100+ for kits comprised of $5 in parts doesn't endear me to them at all. They're like Apple saying they invented the rectangle.