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Lego Vidiyo sounds like a TikTok-like music video playground for kids

A new Lego line made with Universal Music scans bricks to create AR music videos in your home.

Scott Stein Editor at Large
I started with CNET reviewing laptops in 2009. Now I explore wearable tech, VR/AR, tablets, gaming and future/emerging trends in our changing world. Other obsessions include magic, immersive theater, puzzles, board games, cooking, improv and the New York Jets. My background includes an MFA in theater which I apply to thinking about immersive experiences of the future.
Expertise VR and AR, gaming, metaverse technologies, wearable tech, tablets Credentials
  • Nearly 20 years writing about tech, and over a decade reviewing wearable tech, VR, and AR products and apps
Scott Stein
2 min read
character-kids-and-beatbits

Lego Vidiyo is part social music app, part AR scanning toy set.

Lego

There have been lots of experimental Lego games, Lego robots and even Lego AR-enabled haunted houses. Lego's newest project? A music video AR-enabled social app for grade-school kids.

Vidiyo is a music video-making app and brick kit aimed at kids aged 7-10 that can scan special effects-enabled coded tiles and make social music clips. There's an app where kids could create their own mixes and upload them, using Lego pieces that can be scanned to unlock effects and augmented reality in the videos.

Lego Vidiyo is a collaboration with Universal Music Group, which provides licensed music that can be mixed in the videos. The sets look like they have minifigures plus scannable special effects-triggering tiles called BeatBits that can be used to make videos. The AR animation can be laid in the real world in a minute-long performance, which can be cut into uploadable clips anywhere from 5 to 20 seconds that can be put in a social app created by Lego. 

character-scan

Vidiyo will scan its bricks into the app, where effects will be overlaid.

Lego

It's a really weird idea, landing somewhere between Lego, TikTok and music games like Harmonix' Hasbro collaboration, Dropmix. It also almost sounds like a Lego toy version of Apple Clips. The Lego app will require parental consent to use, similar in a sense to how Lego's first crack at a social app, Lego Life, worked in early 2017.

We don't know much more about how Lego Vidiyo will work, or how much sets will cost. But Lego already has augmented reality-enhanced sets, which work by being scanned with a phone or tablet that's AR-capable. We haven't tried Vidiyo yet, but we will soon... we'll make more sense out of it then.