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Probably my favorite thing about the Lego Smart Play system unveiled this week at CES is that it was designed for kids, first and foremost. In the past 10 years or so, Lego has increasingly courted an older audience with more expensive and elaborate sets. But when it was time to bring more advanced technology to Lego, the idea right from the beginning was more social and interactive play.
If you haven't heard about Smart Play yet, its a way for Lego to make its sets more interactive. A Smart Brick filled with sensors makes it so sets can respond to each other, know when they're moving, play sounds and know when the corresponding Smart Minifigures are near them. Tiny Smart Tags, meanwhile, help the Smart Brick know the context of how it's being used — whether it's in a helicopter, car or duck for example.
Tom Donaldson, senior VP and Head of Creative Play Lab at the LEGO Group, told Engadget that the company worked on Smart Play for about eight years before introducing it this week, and that social play was the starting point. "We started really looking at consumer needs, and this idea that kids really like social play," said Donaldson "Kids really like the sort of things that change when they come back to them, and the kids really like agency. They want to be able to change things."
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We need a whole new approach to "credibility signals" so we know who to trust, says Adam Mosseri.
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A new year is the perfect time to get your spending in order, and if you're not trying to build your own spreadsheet, budgeting apps are one of the best ways to do it. To save yourself some money in the process, you can pick up a year-long subscription to Monarch Money, one of Engadget's favorite budgeting apps, for just $50 if you use code NEWYEAR2026 at checkout and you're a new subscriber. That's a 50 percent discount on the service's normal $100 price.
Monarch Money makes for a capable and detailed budgeting companion. You can use the service via apps for iOS, Android, iPadOS or the web, and Monarch also offers a Chrome extension that can sync your Amazon and Target transactions and automatically categorize them. Like other budgeting apps, Monarch Money lets you connect multiple financial accounts and track your money based on where you spend it over time. Monarch offers two different approaches to tracking budgeting (flexible and category budgeting) depending on what fits your life best, and the ability to add a budget widget on your phone so you can know how you're tracking that month.
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Don't know what to watch? Dig through these Netflix movie picks that span every genre.
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This charging station features four three-prong AC outlets oriented in opposite directions so your bulky plugs don't get in the way of each other. And you know how all your USB power adapters take up so much room on your power strip? This solves that problem with built-in USB ports along the bottom edge—two USB-C, two USB-A—so those AC outlets can be reserved for importance stuff (like monitors).
As far as power, the main USB-C maxes out at 20W, the secondary USB-C at 15W, and the USB-A ports at 12W. When multiple ports are used at the same time, they typically max out around 15W shared (except for the USB-As, which max out at 12W shared). While that's far from "super fast" charging speeds, it's still plenty speedy for a budget-friendly charging station that's meant to be used while you're at home for a while.
I also love this charging station's flat profile—measuring 4.72 x 3.15 inches and only 0.71 inches thick—and the AC outlets recess when you aren't using them, so the whole thing takes up less space than your typical power strip and feels quite sleek. The power cord is 5 feet long so you can position it almost anywhere, and the end plug is flat and angled so you can easily reach it behind furniture hassle-free.
You can't go wrong with this, especially at this price. Get this 8-in-1 Anker
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