LEGO® Powered Up 4+

Very Interesting! (Could be a bit better)

I recently purchased the Grand Piano set, and it pretty much worked the way I expected (I didn’t go in thinking each note could play separately).

However, I feel it could be made better with the addition of custom / recorded sound effects inside of the Powered Up app’s “create” section. Or even the ability to add in a specific sound effect of piano notes for the 25 keys. As it stands, I’ve been able to make it trigger silly sound effects like robot noises or dog barks and cat meows, which obviously make no sense for a grand piano. :)

This would allow people to program the piano to play a set of notes of a custom song as the keys are triggered (similar to how it currently works with its play function), or even play a set bit of recorded audio - much like the previous boost app was able to do.

Other than that, the piano / app work very well, and are very enjoyable as a set piece with simple controls!

Missing BOOST

Came to this via the Lego Star Wars BOOST app, which is reaching EOL this fall, much to my dismay, and we were directed to this app as the replacement…. This is a much more hastily thrown together app than that one was, and I’m disappointed that where Warner Bros IP is available in this app, none of the Star Wars content is here. I hope they port the programming elements from that app over to this one if they intend for us to use that hardware here, so that we can still have all the droid sounds and reactions, along with programming elements that were already designed for a move hub in these configurations.

Moreover, I’m skeptical about investing any more into this for the kids if they’re not able to commit to supporting the software in the long the run. IOS apps take yearly maintenance, and it doesn’t seem like LEGO is committed to the effort. So I need to wait to see how long this one last, or I need some kind of statement from LEGO about their long term plans with this platform.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and concerns with us, we'll be sure to pass them on to the relevant team and appreciate your feedback. If you have any questions or need help getting started, reach out to our experts via LEGO.build/Service-Apple so we can help. 📞- Alina, LEGO® Customer Service

Needs documentation

Most of the app works great now (it used to be really finicky), but figuring out how to use it is really challenging. Most block coding environments have either a basic description of what each block does, or words on the blocks, but the LEGO powered up app provides no such descriptions. It seems that LEGO has backed themselves up into a corner by trying to making the app understandable by kids as well as attempting to achieve the full functionality of the Powered Up system. Adding a text programming mode (with Python or some other simple language) that unlocks the full functionality and contains thorough documentation while reducing the complexity of the block programming is the path that LEGO should take. (I am aware that the new Mindstorms system will be programmable in Python, I am hoping that that will be compatible with the rest of Powered Up)

Developer Response ,

Thanks so much for taking the time to leave your feedback. 🥰 Our developers are constantly working hard to improve our apps. 🤓 Let's see what they have in store for us! 👀
Happy building! ✨
- Céline, LEGO® Customer Service