Duolingo launches $249 portable piano

Duolingo, the popular language-learning app, has partnered with the musical instrument maker Loog to build a beginner-friendly piano.

The Loog x Duolingo Piano is available to pre-order for $249 and will start shipping in November. It can be purchased on Duolingo’s website, which describes the instrument as having “pro sound, pro features, and pro design.”

The piano pairs with Duolingo Music, a music learning course that the platform launched more than a year ago as part of its expansion to non-language subjects, including mathematics.

It is almost identical to Loog Piano, which the musical instrument company launched on Kickstarter, a crowd-funding platform, last year. Both are shoebox-sized, have 37 keys and solid wood panels, and have a rechargeable battery that should last for eight hours.

Both have built-in speakers designed to emulate an acoustic piano, and the differences are mainly aesthetic. The Duolingo version comes in the app's characteristic lime green and has an installed phone holder for following the notes.

According to Loog, the original piano was built with beginners and kids in mind, but also musicians seeking a professional-grade portable piano to play “wherever inspiration strikes.”

Duolingo says that its new portable piano differs from similar keyboards of the same size and price in that it comes equipped with keys allowing for piano “dynamics,” which means a user can play soft or loud sounds depending on how gentle or hard they press the keys.

Duolingo Music course is similar to the platform’s language lessons in its “game-like” learning process. Lessons are based on exercises and tracks from artists such as Pharell Williams, Meghan Trainor, Pink, and others.

Duolingo says it has almost 100 million monthly active users, making it the most popular language-learning app in the world. It offers courses in 43 languages, including English, French, and Spanish, but also less commonly studied, such as Welsh or Navajo.