magic band questions...

[acarsme123]

Hello,
I just purchased the Disney After Hours event for our March 2020 trip after all the great feedback I got from my earlier question about the event. We were last at Disney in 2018, and still have our magic bands. I chose the email delivery option for our After Hours tickets, but we aren't staying on Disney property this year. I understand that I should be able to link my tickets to the magic bands we have though, correct? My only concern is whether or not our bands will still work since they will be at the 2 year old mark when we go. Would it just be better to buy new bands online to be on the safe side, or should we be good?
Also, I noticed my wife's bands aren't showing up in my profile. Looks like just mine and my son's are. If memory serves me correctly, my wife had her own separate MDE account/login. I wonder if it would be better to consolidate everything to one account though? Is this hard to do, to update our account with our joint email address, and add her bands under the one account so I can see all of them? Thanks.

 

[acarsme123]

So my ticket order finally went through, and when I logged into the Disney site with my account, it now shows our tickets. Do they automatically get linked to any Magic Bands you have activated? I thought I might have to do this manually by plugging in our ticket confirmation number, but I got an error back saying this ticket number was already linked. I am very confused by this.

 

[PinkPig]

If the tickets are shown in your account they are already linked.

I would always have a confirmation email ready in case there is a technical problem but you should be fine. MagicBands should work indefinitely for park admission. The battery inside may run out after about 2 years but that is only required for things where you don’t tap your band, like automatically linking ride photos.

 

[acarsme123]

...Is there any way I can get my wife's ticket to show up on my login? It shows her as one of my family members, but I can't see her ticket info for some reason. I can't remember if she had created her own login for past visits or not. I thought I had managed all family members, but maybe I am wrong.

So are the park admissions linked to the last set of magic bands we used? I had two bands listed for both myself and my son. One was from our first trip back in 2016, and the others from 2018. I just de-activated the ones from 2016 and left the 2018 bands activated.

 

[acarsme123]

If the tickets are shown in your account they are already linked.

I would always have a confirmation email ready in case there is a technical problem but you should be fine. MagicBands should work indefinitely for park admission. The battery inside may run out after about 2 years but that is only required for things where you don’t tap your band, like automatically linking ride photos.

So the bands don't need battery power to tap on the admission posts? Interesting...

 

[rwdavis2]

So the bands don't need battery power to tap on the admission posts? Interesting...

That is correct. They have RFID chips like an E-Z Pass, badge readers or credit cards. They get "stimulated" by a weak radio signal and they emit their id number to the stimulator.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

...Is there any way I can get my wife's ticket to show up on my login? It shows her as one of my family members, but I can't see her ticket info for some reason. I can't remember if she had created her own login for past visits or not. I thought I had managed all family members, but maybe I am wrong.

So are the park admissions linked to the last set of magic bands we used? I had two bands listed for both myself and my son. One was from our first trip back in 2016, and the others from 2018. I just de-activated the ones from 2016 and left the 2018 bands activated.

If the park admissions are linked to your profiles in MDE, you can access them using any MBs also linked to those profiles. If your 2018 MBs are linked, they should work just fine.

I would see if you can log into your wife's MDE account to see what is listed there. If you can then see her info in her MDE account, perhaps you need to re-connect via Friends and Family. If you need help, you can call Disney IT and they can look at the accounts for you.

 

[hiroMYhero]

Also, I noticed my wife's bands aren't showing up in my profile. Looks like just mine and my son's are. If memory serves me correctly, my wife had her own separate MDE account/login

Because she has her own account, you don’t Manage her, at least Disney-wise.

You only see MBs of those you Manage.

Example: I am linked to another Mod and I can see his AP but not his dozen MBs.

 

[Polydweller]

So the bands don't need battery power to tap on the admission posts? Interesting...

Yep. They have two rfid chips. One is passive and is used fro the things you have to touch it to like turnstiles, room doors and payment machines. The other is battery powered and is used for things like pictures on rides, anything you don’t have to touch.

 

[cobright]

So the bands don't need battery power to tap on the admission posts? Interesting...

Yep. If you have a relatively recent android phone that has the 'touch to pay' ability you can get a free app called 'NFC Tools' and read your magicband tag ID.

Yep. They have two rfid chips. One is passive and is used fro the things you have to touch it to like turnstiles, room doors and payment machines. The other is battery powered and is used for things like pictures on rides, anything you don’t have to touch.

Actually there is 3 radios in there.

1. One of them is a 13.56 MHz near field RFID, this is the one that lights up the mickey at the cash register or at the park entrance. Its range is an inch or two.
2. Then there's a 915 MHz passive UHF RFID, this one does short range geolocation. It's the one that tells the signs on Rock n Rollercoaster your name for the concert poster. It's also what tells the photopass system who was in each ride shot (hopefully). And when it's working right, it's how they find you at Be Our Guest to deliver your food. Like the NFC chip above, this chip is also completely passive and doesn't use the battery at all.Range on this is 15-20 feet.
3. Lastly, there's a 2.4 GHz active radio made by Nordic Semiconductor. This one geolocates you at the meta level and gives Disney the bigger picture about crowd levels, movement, and behavior. This one can communicate out past 100-150 feet.

 

[acarsme123]

yeah my wife was able to login with her own password today. I remember the first time we went I wanted her to create her own login/password as I was unsure if having two people logged in under the same username/password on the MDE app at the same time would cause conflicts