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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.
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 |
Who is ONE Smart Piano Most Suitable For?
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
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 | |
Features |
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 |
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cons |
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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:
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.
A Yamaha YDP103R Arius would also give you several things the ONE Smart Piano doesn't, including:
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.
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.
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