Magic Bands - 2.5 Years Later

Hi everyone, we are looking to arrange our next WDW visit for April or May 2020. Our last one was August/September 2017 where we bought Magic Bands, we were staying offsite but saw them on sale at the Transportation and Ticket Centre when collecting our tickets and decided they were definitely worth it.

I understand the magic bands are reusable, my question is about battery life. It will be about 2 and a half years since our last visit, we still have the bands which have been sitting patiently at home. Will the batteries still work as expected or would we have problems using the bands again? Or maybe we should just take them and find out? :mickey:

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Originally Posted by Giggy

Hi everyone, we are looking to arrange our next WDW visit for April or May 2020. Our last one was August/September 2017 where we bought Magic Bands, we were staying offsite but saw them on sale at the Transportation and Ticket Centre when collecting our tickets and decided they were definitely worth it.

I understand the magic bands are reusable, my question is about battery life. It will be about 2 and a half years since our last visit, we still have the bands which have been sitting patiently at home. Will the batteries still work as expected or would we have problems using the bands again? Or maybe we should just take them and find out? :mickey:

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Was told by Disney employee that what they have seen is that Magic Bands have been lasting up to 7 years. So I would definitely take them with you.

That's right around the time, if I recall correctly, that Magic Band "2" came out. Not sure if you have the older version or newer. But it's going to be close for you with the battery. I have heard people say the expected life of the batteries are 2-3 years. If they've just been sitting at home and not being scanned dozens of times during Disney stays, that battery might remain strong longer?! Hope it works out for you!

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Originally Posted by boornl00

Was told by Disney employee that what they have seen is that Magic Bands have been lasting up to 7 years. So I would definitely take them with you.

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Wow - that's much better! Hope they're right!

For anything where you tap the Magic Band to a Mickey head (getting into the parks, FP+, purchases, etc.), a Magic Band will work virtually forever. For ride photos and some of the "magical" extras (having your name show up on the goodbye signs on IASW, for instance), the normal lifespan of a band is about 3 years for those features. Though as mentioned, the are cases where they last much longer.

The reason for this is that the are 2 RFID chips in each band - one is passive, requiring no on-board power source (power comes from the thing you tap); the other is active and is powered by a battery in the band. This chip has a small transceiver in it and can communicate over short distances wirelessly. That battery will eventually die. When it does, only the wireless functions will cease. Everything else (all the important stuff) wil continue working.

So unless ride photos are super important to you, those old bands will work just fine for as long as Disney uses the technology.

Steve

Leave it to Disney to give you a product that can last forever for making purchases!

Thanks for the explanation on the MB. That was very interesting.