Magic Band Battery Life

[DavidNYC]

Been getting magic bands since they came out and between a few trips and a few rescheduled trips have probably 5-6 bands for each of my family. For the life of me I cannot remember which ones are two years old and which are a few months old. I seem to remember hearing 2 years was the expected life - any early users have battery issues yet and is there a way to determine date of bands?

 

[wdw&sonny]

I read that it will last about 2-3 years. BUT, there are two RFID chips inside. One is active (requires battery) and one is passive (powered by external source). Many of the features of the MB will work even after battery is dead such as park entry and fast pass. More info on disneyblog (dot com).

 

[OKW Lover]

Have not heard of anybody who's battery has run out on a MB. Even when the battery does run out, the only thing that will stop working is the "long" range feature that automatically links on-ride photos to your photopass/whatever its called now.

 

[larryz]

If you put your year of visit in the band personalized inscription... like this...

You'll always know how old your MagicBands are.

 

[HopperFan]

If you put your year of visit in the band personalized inscription... like this...

You'll always know how old your MagicBands are.

BRILLIANT!

The whole name thing is only good to tell them apart. You could even just do initials then the date!

Right now I store all mine in their original boxes, on a shelf, with the year in big sharpie on the box. A printed date could save me some space.

 

[CarolynFH]

Have not heard of anybody who's battery has run out on a MB. Even when the battery does run out, the only thing that will stop working is the "long" range feature that automatically links on-ride photos to your photopass/whatever its called now.

The trouble is there's no way to tell whether that battery has died or not. Toward the end of our trip in early December our ride photos stopped appearing in my PP account. The MB I was wearing was only about a year old so the battery should still be good, but if not for the PP folks who found and linked those photos to my account we would have lost them.