LEGO SPIKE Is Being Discontinued: What Parents Need to Know (2026)

If you’ve been thinking about buying a LEGO robotics kit for your child, the clock is ticking. LEGO Education is discontinuing the entire SPIKE line on June 30, 2026. After that date, SPIKE Prime and SPIKE Essential will no longer be available for purchase from LEGO.

Here’s what’s happening, what it means for your child, and what you should do about it.

What Exactly Is Happening

LEGO Education will stop selling SPIKE Prime and SPIKE Essential kits on June 30, 2026. This affects both new purchases and expansion sets.

The SPIKE app will continue to work until June 30, 2031. That’s five more years of full software support. Your existing hardware doesn’t become a brick overnight. The motors, sensors, and hub will all keep working with the app through 2031.

After 2031, LEGO has not said what happens to the app. It may continue to work but without updates, or it may stop functioning entirely. This is the part nobody can answer yet.

What This Means for Families

If you already own SPIKE Prime, you’re fine for now. The kit works, the app works, and you have five years of supported use ahead of you. Your child can keep building and programming as normal.

If you don’t own SPIKE yet and have been considering it, you need to decide before June 30, 2026. After that, your options are secondhand purchases at unpredictable prices.

Here’s what I tell parents at my makerspace:

What About SPIKE Essential?

I use Essential at my nonprofit because we needed to fill an elementary niche but couldn’t spend more money on SPIKE Prime. It works for that specific situation: a classroom with young kids where the kits get heavy use and the lower per-unit cost matters when you’re buying more than one. But for a family buying one kit? Spend the extra money on Prime. You’ll get years more use out of it.

What Comes After SPIKE?

LEGO has not announced a replacement product. I’m actively keeping watch for products that will fill the gap SPIKE is leaving behind.

LEGO did release an AI robotics set that I attended a webinar about. It doesn’t appear to be worth the cost right now. While it might be a great product for teachers who want a plug-and-play option for the classroom, it fills a different niche than the open-ended nature of previous LEGO offerings, at least at this point in time. The value of SPIKE was always that kids could build whatever they imagined and program it themselves. If LEGO’s next product doesn’t offer that, it’s not really a SPIKE replacement.

If LEGO or anyone else releases something that fills this gap, I’ll test it with my students and review it here. Until then, here are the platforms I recommend as complements or alternatives:

Should You Stockpile SPIKE Parts?

Here’s my honest answer:

Don’t go overboard. Buy one SPIKE Prime kit if you don’t have one. Beyond that, I wouldn’t recommend more than an extra motor or two. SPIKE hardware is durable. The motors and sensors rarely break. The hub is the most likely failure point, and by the time a hub fails years from now, your child will have moved on to other platforms.

If something does break down the road, parts can still be found on eBay, although often at a premium. That’s a better gamble than spending $1,000+ on backup kits today. That money is better spent on a 3D printer, an Arduino kit, or a VEX IQ set that diversifies your child’s STEM experience.

The Pybricks Alternative

One option worth knowing about: Pybricks is a free, open-source firmware that works with SPIKE Prime hardware. It replaces the official LEGO app with a Python-based environment that doesn’t depend on LEGO’s software support timeline.

Pybricks is developed independently and has an active community. If LEGO’s app stops working after 2031, Pybricks could extend the life of your SPIKE hardware indefinitely. It’s not something most families need right now, but it’s good to know it exists as a safety net.

What I’m Doing

I use SPIKE Essential with my students every week. I’m not panicking about the discontinuation, and you shouldn’t either. Here’s my plan:

I’m continuing to use SPIKE Essential as my primary teaching platform for elementary students through 2026. I’m gradually introducing more Mindstorms projects alongside SPIKE. By the time SPIKE’s app support ends in 2031, my students will already be comfortable with multiple platforms.

For families, I recommend the same approach: buy SPIKE Prime now if you want it, use it fully over the next few years, and introduce complementary tools (3D printer, Arduino) along the way. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, but don’t avoid SPIKE just because it has an end date. Every technology product has an end date. Five years of supported use is a long time in a child’s education.

The Bottom Line

LEGO SPIKE Prime is still the best introductory robotics platform for families with kids ages 5-13. The discontinuation doesn’t change that. What it changes is the timeline: you need to buy before June 30, 2026, and you should plan for a transition to other platforms over the next few years.

Buy SPIKE Prime now if it’s right for your family. Use the full buying guide for details on what to look for and what to pair it with. Start thinking about Arduino and VEX IQ as your child’s next step. And don’t waste money on SPIKE Essential.

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