With 25 submissions to the LEGO Ideas forum (5 of which crossed the 10,000 vote mark), LEGO builder Dimexart is somewhat of a veteran when it comes to putting plastic bricks together. The brick aficionado’s latest creation combines LEGOs with the real-world in the form of a vintage radio that actually plays music. Made from over a thousand LEGO bricks, this vintage radio has a secret flap on the back that lets you slide your smartphone in. Switch on Spotify or YouTube, select your favorite track, and hit play as you pop your phone into the LEGO Vintage Radio and it recreates the feeling of having an antique radio playing your favorite tracks! The best part, Dimexart’s build comes with functional knobs and buttons that you can twist and press, moving sliders inside the gizmo just like you would with an authentic AM/FM radio.
Designer: Dimexart
Strangely enough, Dimexart made a radio back in 2021 out of LEGO bricks, and it did cross the 10,000 vote mark too, but was rejected by LEGO’s internal team. Unfazed by this, Dimexart went back to the drawing board and decided to tweak the radio to make it even better. The new MOC (My Own Creation, as it’s called in LEGO parlance) now features a flap on the back that let’s you slide any smartphone in, using the phone’s speakers and the acoustic chamber of the empty LEGO radio to create that warm, slightly twangy audio associated with radios of the past.
In Dimexart’s demo, he even uses the phone screen to mimic the warm backlight seen in most radio control panels. Given that they were sometimes used at night too, radios came with lights in their gauges so you could see which station you were on. Dimexart’s build uses light from your smartphone’s screen to create a similar experience.
The dials on the left and right are both functional and cause sliders inside to move left or right to indicate the station/frequency or the volume. There are dials/knobs and buttons on the bottom too, which are functional in that they can be interacted with – but that’s about all they do. It’s a fun interaction, however, and recreates the real tactile joy of the radio, which firmly belonged in a much more hands-on era long before touchscreens dominated our lives. The radio comes with a wood-inspired aesthetic, a rather realistic set of grills, and that gorgeous control panel on the bottom that I’m sure you won’t be able to get enough of.
Dimexart’s entry currently has 3,228 supporters as of writing this article. If you want to vote for the entry (and hopefully see it turn into a retail box set), vote for it on the LEGO Ideas website here.
