[whywhywhywhy]

It looks like this works without a phone now I'm reading more into it, when I saw the announcement on social media I assumed it would just be a brick that can signal to or be tracked by a phone which is far less interesting.

Good to see a move away from trying to bring a tablet/phone into this kind of play.

[crtasm]

Yes, they made this explicit in the "fact sheet"

>... LEGO SMART Bricks can talk to each other directly - no app, central hub, or external controller required.