The Rubik’s Cube has been reinvented with more games and many more screens for much more money.
What has long been cherished as a simple toy yet complex puzzle requiring nothing but a healthy amount of twisting, turning, and patience has been rebooted for the 21st century. Naturally, that calls for a few dashes of technology.
Differing from the original Rubik’s Cube, which has six faces that each contain a 3×3 grid, the Rubik’s WOWCube, made available for preorder today, as spotted by The Verge, has six faces with 2×2 grids.
Rather than a solid-colored sticker, each of the toy's 24 squares is a 240×240 IPS display. The cube itself is composed of eight "cubicle modules," as Cubios, the company behind the toy, calls them. Each module includes three of those IPS screens and a dedicated SoC. As a Cubios support page explains:
Our patented magnetic connectors allow the modules to maintain perfect electrical contact and seamless data flow between them, no matter how the cube is rotated. This ensures that data can be transferred between autonomous modules on the fly, enabling data sharing and distributing low voltage power across the WOWCube …
Each of the 24 displays can be set to show a solid color for solving a simpler, but still captivating, Rubik’s puzzle. Alternatively, the screens can be twisted and turned to play dozens of different games, including Block Buster, Space Invaders, and Jewel Hunter.
Also part of the toy is a gyroscope, 6-axis accelerometer, and eight speakers. Cubios claims the integrated battery can last for up to seven hours before needing a recharge.
In order to add games or other apps to the WOWCube, you must download the WOWCube Connect iOS or Android app, pair the toy with your phone over Bluetooth, and then use the mobile app to download games onto the WOWCube.
Currently, the WOWCube’s online app store lists 47 games; some cost money to download, and some aren’t available yet. The WOWCube runs its own operating system, dubbed CubiOS, and Cubios (the company) offers a free DevKit.
WOWCube attempts to bring additional functionality to Rubik’s cubes with, as of this writing, nine additional apps, including a timer and apps that make the toy look like an aquarium or snow globe, for instance.
New-age Rubik’s Cube
The 51-year-old puzzle toy feels decently out of place in today's app ecosystem. The original Rubik’s Cube developed from an experiment by Hungarian architecture professor Ernő Rubik, who sought to build a structure made of eight cubes that could move around individually without the entire structure falling apart. That grew into a commercially distributed toy that would eventually become an icon of the 1980s as well as for today’s puzzle aficionados. Reliance on electronics like a phone and proprietary charger is a big deviation from the original Rubik’s Cube, which entertains for hours with minimal bells and whistles.
That said, this isn’t the first technological take on the Rubik’s Cube.
Rubik’s Connected cubes, which launched in 2020, also use a companion app for tracking your best times, offering tips, and mini games.
And in 2007, we tested Rubik’s Revolution. The central square in each of the cube’s faces is a pressure-sensitive button lit by an LED. Unlike the original Rubik’s Cube or even the Rubik’s WOWCube, you can’t twist a Rubik’s Revolution cube. Instead, you use it to play mini games, like Light Speed.
As we stated when reviewing Rubik’s Revolution, the WOWCube’s new-age departures from the original puzzle are probably unnecessary additions to the Rubik’s Cube legacy. However, WOWCube strove to be part of the Rubik’s family. The device was previously released without the Rubik’s name in 2022. But in 2024, Cubios partnered with Spin Master, which owns the Rubik’s brand, in order to use the coveted Rubik’s branding.
Rubik’s Cube devotees may be divided on whether or not the WOWCube follows the spirit of the classic 3D puzzle. But for those who don’t need their arm twisted to see the WOWCube's appeal, it costs $299. Cubios says preorders will arrive by Christmas 2025.
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