Lifecycle alert: LEGO Education SPIKE retires June 30, 2026; app support through 2031

What the source says

We read the original and outlined it point by point — in the source’s own order.

1. The SPIKE Prime Set (45678) is retired; sales ended June 30, 2026.
2. LEGO says SPIKE products remain valuable tools and can continue in use.
3. The SPIKE app receives bug fixes and OS-compatibility updates (macOS, Windows, Chromebook, Android, iOS) until June 30, 2031 — but no new features after June 30, 2026.
4. After June 30, 2031 the app stays downloadable but gets no updates or fixes.
5. Teacher and lesson resources remain available until June 30, 2031.
6. SPIKE Prime is eligible for FIRST LEGO League only through the 2027–28 season; the successor Computer Science & AI line is supported from 2026–27 onward.
7. Spare parts stay stocked for two years after final sale, tied to warranty obligations.

Notes from our read

• The five-year app-support runway is genuinely decent — many edtech products get far less.
• The sharp deadlines: FLL competition eligibility ends after the 2027–28 season; spare parts end around mid-2028.
• Replacement lines: LEGO Education Science, and LEGO Education Computer Science & AI.
• Discounted SPIKE sets on the secondary market are discounted for a reason — price in the countdown.

In plain words

SPIKE Prime has been one of the most common robotics kits in American schools — LEGO bricks plus motors and sensors, programmed from a laptop. LEGO has now retired it: stores stopped selling it June 30, 2026. The kits in classrooms don't stop working; what changes is everything around them, on a published schedule.

Think of it like a car model being discontinued. Your car still drives, but new parts get scarce and the manufacturer eventually stops servicing it. Here the schedule is explicit: the app gets repairs (but nothing new) until mid-2031, spare parts run roughly two more years, and — the deadline that stings for competitive teams — SPIKE robots can only enter FIRST LEGO League through the 2027–28 season. After that, teams need the newer platform to compete.

This brief is on our board as a lesson, not just a notice: every robotics platform, from every brand, has a lifecycle. The questions a school should ask before buying any class set are exactly the ones this page answers for SPIKE — when does sale end, how long do parts and software last, what replaces it, and will it still be legal in competition? A vendor that can't answer those in writing is telling you something.

Words to know

Product lifecycle

A product's whole lifespan: launch, sales, support, then retirement — ideally on a published schedule.

End of support

The date the maker stops fixing bugs and keeping software compatible. The product may still run, but nobody's maintaining it.

FIRST LEGO League (FLL)

The largest school robotics competition, with rules about which robot platforms teams may use.