The ONE Smart Piano Review: A Smart Way to Help You Learn Faster

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The ONE Smart Piano Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano is a console keyboard that uses onboard intelligence and a companion digital app to teach you to play the piano. It makes learning fun and simple, with lots of engaging options, and you can learn at your own pace and practice in your own home. It may look like a normal digital console piano, but it has intelligent features that make it so much more than that. It’s been praised by USA Today, the New York Times, HuffPost, Digital Trends, and more.

Table of Contents

• Overview of The ONE Smart Piano
• Video Overview of The ONE Smart Piano
• Specifications of The ONE Smart Piano
• Who is ONE Smart Piano Most Suitable For?
• What’s Included in the Box of The ONE Smart Piano?
• Features of The ONE Smart Piano
• Pros & Cons of The ONE Smart Piano
• The ONE Smart Piano Manual
• An Alternative Product to Consider
• One Smart Piano teaches you to play using an iPad
• Louise Bishop’s Review of The ONE Smart Piano
• Conclusion

In this The One Smart Piano review we will take a look what makes this keyboard smart, how does it work and our final thought on if you should be sitting this one out.

Overview of The ONE Smart Piano

Traditional piano teachers are often rightly concerned that if young people use apps to learn to play a digital piano, they will lack well-rounded development and fail to learn skills that will allow them to play an acoustic piano without assistance.

The ONE Smart Piano Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano is designed to alleviate that concern; the keys are fully weighted, for finger strength and technique, and the light-up functions are discrete and effective, but can be turned off, and the three built-in foot pedals help learners build more skills and play more complex pieces.

In short, if a student uses the app to its full capability, participating in games, challenge modes, and following the lessons, they will learn piano playing and music reading skills that can last a lifetime, even if they are playing a traditional piano.

While many digital piano companies are coming out with companion apps that augment the keyboard, the ONE Smart Piano Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano is different. Controls on the keyboard itself are limited to the metronome, tempo, and master volume control. In other words, without the app, not only can you not access the lessons, games, and song library, but you also can’t control any of the other piano keyboard functions or settings. The app doesn’t just go along with the keyboard, but is integral.

Video Overview of The ONE Smart Piano

Specifications of The ONE Smart Piano

Specification	Description
Keys	88 fully weighted hammer-action keys
Instrument Sounds	128 instrument sounds
Rhythms	4 built-in rhythms
Tones	A headphone jack and an additional audio out port
Polyphony	64 level max polyphony
Speakers	Professional stereo surround sound speakers Can be used as a speaker system for external audio

Who is ONE Smart Piano Most Suitable For?

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The ONE Smart Piano Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano is designed for beginners of all ages who want to skip boring repetition and playing scales, and go right to learning how to play their favorite songs on the piano.

The ability to use the lighted keys and a smart device to start learning songs is a great way to jump-start your piano education, and the games, tools, and exercises available on the app make learning fun and simple. It’s particularly good for kids, who love interacting with digital devices, and will take readily to the game-play style of learning offered by the ONE Smart Piano Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano.

 However, the ONE Smart Piano Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano is also expensive relative to other keyboards, and comes in a substantial, furniture-style console. It may not be the best choice for a young child who may lose interest and move on to other activities, because it does represent an investment in money and space.

What’s Included in the Box of The ONE Smart Piano?

The ONE Smart Piano Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano comes with a high-quality wooden-looking console, with built-in sliding keyboard dust cover, robust music stand designed for tablets, and a 3 pedal-panel. It also comes with a power cord and data cables.

Features of The ONE Smart Piano

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As a console piano alone, The ONE Smart Piano, Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano is fairly slim on features.

FEATURE	DESCRIPTION
88 fully weighted hammer	It has 88 fully weighted hammer-action keys, for a feel and playability that is similar to playing an acoustic piano. Learning on a weighted keyboard helps the fingers develop the correct technique, strength, and muscle memory to later transition easily to traditional pianos
Key light system	The key light system is discrete, with small lights above the keys, rather than beginner keyboards that light up the entire key. The light system also indicates which hand should play which key, for more accurate hand position learning
Three foot pedals	Three foot pedals are attractive and made of metal, and are excellent for beginners to learn with, and offer soft, sostenuto, and sustain functions
Surround sound speakers	It has surround sound speakers and volume control, for good loudness
Metronome	It has a built-in metronome to help beginners with their timing
Headphone jack	It has a headphone jack on the front and an audio out port on the back, that can be used for headphones or external speakers or amplifiers. The other data cables accessible on the back are proprietary, non-standard data connections
Compatibility	iOS 9.0+ A wide range of iPads and iPhones Android 4.4+ Through apps available in the applicable app store.
Features	Access a library of over 3,000 pieces of sheet music Purchase additional songs to play on your piano Learn to play a song using the “Crash Course” method Access over 100 educational videos of piano lessons Play interactive games that teach you to play piano Learning tools for specialized skill development Record, playback, and share songs easily with your social network Participate in educational piano playing challenges

It’s with the technology services that The ONE Smart Piano, Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano really shines with its compatibility and apps developed. 

These apps make it fun and easy to learn to play the piano, and appeal to kids and adults alike. They are a fun, simple, and engaging way to progress as a piano student.

Pros & Cons of The ONE Smart Piano

PROS

The console is attractive and modern, more compact than a traditional piano, but with the good looks, music stand, and sliding dust cover that make a visual impact Full size, fully weighted 88 key keyboard makes it easy to build skills that can transition to any keyboard or acoustic piano. It’s the best way to learn The key light feature is discrete and helpful, preventing the piano from looking too simple or toy-like. It instructs without calling attention to itself Three foot pedals are also helpful for learning more complex, advanced music, and complete the traditional look of the console 128 instrument sounds and 4 built-in rhythms give a good range of instruments for different musical styles and expressions The app has a huge library of songs available to download and practice The app displays a friendly and intuitive music roll that works with the key lights to help you play music correctly and also learn to read music at the same time Crash Course feature lets you jump right into learning to play your favorite songs without boring exercises Compatible with Android and iOS devices. May also work with Amazon devices Online video lesson library interacts with the key light system to help you learn good piano technique and practice The app has specialized learning tools where you can just practice and improve specific skills if you want to brush up one aspect of your technique The app also has piano learning games, challenges, and activities that can make practice fun and engaging

cons
There is no touch sensitivity in the keys There is no onboard memory for storing songs you have downloaded or purchased; they are all stored in the app The online free song library is mostly classical, public domain music, and almost all contemporary songs need to be purchased. Songs range from $0.99 to $9.99 each Proprietary USB connection cable must be purchased from The ONE company

The ONE Smart Piano Manual

If you’d like to check out the nitty-gritty of One Smart Piano, here’s a link to the model’s manual:

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD ONE SMART PIANO MANUAL

An Alternative Product to Consider

The ONE Smart Piano, Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano represents a practically unique relationship between the console piano and the apps that interact with it. While other piano manufacturers are incorporating more app connectivity all the time, with the ONE Smart Pianos, the app is integral to the capabilities of this instrument.

Unfortunately, in this case, that dependency can become a weakness. While the ONE Smart Pianos claim to be iOS and Android compatible, and their FAQ state that they “should” work with Amazon tablets and devices, they frequently do not.

The company appears to no longer be updating the Android version of the app at all. When the app doesn’t work, this large, 117 pound instrument is extremely limited in capabilities. Furthermore, because the ONE is a crowdsourced product created by a startup, there is no assurance of ongoing updates from the company, and support is poor or nonexistent.

 While the ONE Smart Piano, Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano represents some exciting advances and capabilities in console keyboards, there is a better alternative.

Consider pairing the Yamaha YDP103R Arius with The ONE Hi-Lite Learning System.

Both the Yamaha YDP103R Arius and The ONE Smart Piano, Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano give you:

• 88 full-size fully weighted keys
• A handsome console with a sliding keyboard cover
• Three foot pedals
• 64 levels of polyphony
• USB connectivity

A Yamaha YDP103R Arius would also give you several things the ONE Smart Piano doesn’t, including:

• Matte black key tops
• Touch responsive keys
• Half-pedal functions
• AWM stereo sampling sound engine
• 4 types of reverb
• Dual, layered, and duo keyboard functions
• Adjustable tempo, transpose, and tuning
• It comes with a piano bench that matches the console

The ONE Hi-Lite Learning System is a slim bar that sits across the top of an 88-key keyboard with no installation, so you can use the same lesson-light system as The ONE Smart Piano, and access all the songs, games, lessons, and exercises in the ONE Smart app.

With this setup, you would miss out on some of the instrument voices and rhythms that come with the ONE Smart Piano, Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano, but if the app didn’t work or you no longer needed the key lighting system, you could easily remove it and still have a fully functioning, attractive console piano with great sound.

The ONE Smart Piano, Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano and a package of the Yamaha YDP103R Arius with the ONE Hi-Lite Learning System cost about the same amount of money and take up the same amount of room in your home, without some of the technological risks associated with investing in the ONE Smart Piano, Weighted 88-Key Digital Piano. It’s a good compromise between the exciting technology developed by the ONE team, and the desire to invest in a consistently performing musical instrument.

One Smart Piano teaches you to play using an iPad

Louise Bishop’s Review of The ONE Smart Piano

Conclusion

The ONE Smart Piano represents some exciting advances in how we learn, play, and understand music. The app is powerful, engaging, and enables a huge range of musical experiences and lessons to suit every taste.

However, without the app, the keyboard itself lacks many basic functions for a console piano in this price range, and the app performance is unstable. It is also annoying to have a company produce a proprietary USB cable in this day and age.

ONE Smart Piano (click image for more info)

A better alternative at this time would be to get a console piano from a different company, and add the ONE Hi-Lite Learning System, to get the best of both worlds, and hope for more mature technology in the future.