Today LEGO announced that they are retiring the Mindstorms brand and sets, instead choosing to focus on robotics products like 45678 SPIKE Prime, which we reviewed in 2020. The current Mindstorms product, 51515 Robot Inventor will be discontinued at the end of 2022, along with Powered Up elements 88016 Large Hub and 88018 Medium Angular Motor. In a clear signal that the company is shifting away from Mindstorms rather than preparing to launch a new generation, LEGO has said that the current Mindstorms team will be reassigned to other departments. The company has promised the current Mindstorms Robot Inventor app will be available through 2024. The 51515 Robot Inventor set (US $359.99 | CAN $459.99 | UK £314.99) is currently out of stock from LEGO in the United States and Canada, and it’s not clear whether it will be available again before it is removed from sale.
Here’s the full press release from LEGO:
Since its launch in September 1998, LEGO MINDSTORMS has been one of the core ‘Build & Code’ experiences in the company’s portfolio, carrying with it significant brand equity and becoming a stand-out experience for the early days of consumer robotics and leading to current Build & Code experiences such as SPIKE Prime, from LEGO Education’s LEGO Learning System.
However, now having a number of priorities in LEGO Education and other Build & Code experiences, we have decided to focus our resources and future plans by redirecting our MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor team and their expertise into different areas of the business.
This means the physical MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor product (51515) and its related elements (88016 and 88018) are to exit our portfolio from the end of 2022, whilst digital platforms – such as the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor App – will remain live until at least the end of 2024.
We still have strong belief in the Build & Code proposition and will continue to support it through platforms such as SPIKE Prime, and we are continuing to hold on to the trademark for the MINDSTORMS brand and assessing our future plans together with LEGO Education.
I’ll have to buy up a bunch of those angular motors before they skyrocket in cost.
Though I have to say the moment there was an app instead of any sort of backward compatible programming, the product fell into tech oblivion. You knew it was destined to have support pulled. If you make anything, but especially an educational aspect of a building toy, able to have support pulled, you PROTEST the concept. You tell them this is not a good idea, this makes the world worse. Apps and cloud based computing is garbage. It leads to bad coding, lack of optimization, reductions in function, and a perpetual sword of damocles over everything.
I still have products that have entirely offline control systems, whether self-contained or a 5 minute install of an old operating system, from the 1980’s! Then I can’t get basic programs and access to products without an internet connection all while having a capricious corporation being able to break or end the product on a whim.
They “bricked” lego.
I am very confused by the query I sent to LEGO.com asking for verification of the discontinuing announcement. Here is the reply I got:
Thanks for your question!
There is no official statement about this product. Our marketing team has a long-term plan for our products and whether this product is included or not we can’t tell at this point.
If this is the decision that has been made by the LEGO® company, an official statement would still need to be released as there has been no official statement released.
I hope I have hereby informed you accordingly and wish you a great rest of the day!
Kind regards,
Joris
LEGO® Customer Service
Even if LEGO discontinues Mindstorms it seems they still want to keep the Mindstorms brand which may lead to speculation that somewhere in the future they will bring it back, hopefully better than before. It’s all marketing and timing.