What will we be missing out on by using old Magicband2 ?

[atlbraves49]

Our MagicBand2's are about 3 years old by now. I assume the batteries are dead. But from what I can find, the RFID chip would allow us to still use them for...
- Park Entry scanning
- Multipass/LL scanning
- Resort Room entry

Are the only main features we'd be missing out on:
- Automatic linking of ride photos
- "light up" features / interactive features?

Can we still use it to scan for Memory Pass (photographer) photos? Anything else I'm missing?

 

[beesly]

You've got it right, and you'll still be able to scan for PhotoPass.

I still regularly use a MB2 from 2017. As long as it's showing as "Active" in your MagicBands and Cards list in My Disney Experience, it still works for all the short-range functions that require you to tap. It's just the long-range functions like automatic ride photos that rely on the battery, so I use my phone for that now.

We acquired so many MagicBands over the years that they started to cause issues (it seems the system can only handle tracking a certain number of active bands for any given account), and about two years ago a CM marked a ton of our bands as lost/inactive in order to solve the problem. It worked, but now every time we want to use a band we haven't used in a while, we have to go into our accounts and make sure the band is marked as active.

 

[SL6827]

Nothing.

 

[scrappinginontario]

We’ve just completed a 10 day trip with MBs that are at least 2 1/2 years old and many older than that. We didn’t feel we mused out on anything at all by not having MB+. I was sure to keep the Bluetooth turned on in my phone to pick up ride photos.

I’m waiting until they improve some of the shortcomings of the MB+ (charging, bands undoing) before I make our initial investment.

 

[loves to dive]

Yep, you have it. I use a combination of old ones and the new one. I still have one of the original testing ones that they gave out to only people staying at certain resorts. I don't remember which resorts but back then we only stayed at deluxe (now we stay at all levels) so it had to have been one of those. It still works. I don't buy memory maker and am not interested in ride photos so the old ones are fine for me. As long as I can get in the park and my room, I'm good.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Yep, you have it. I use a combination of old ones and the new one. I still have one of the original testing ones that they gave out to only people staying at certain resorts. I don't remember which resorts but back then we only stayed at deluxe (now we stay at all levels) so it had to have been one of those. It still works. I don't buy memory maker and am not interested in ride photos so the old ones are fine for me. As long as I can get in the park and my room, I'm good.

Same. We stayed at Pop and were part of the initial test group. lol, the art of stacking FPs/LLs was born that very first trip when I fully utilized the paper FPs plus the new electronic ones! We have our first MB from that trip but I did disconnect it at some point.

 

[sponica]

I’m waiting until they improve some of the shortcomings of the MB+ (charging, bands undoing) before I make our initial investment.

If they would reliably sell replacement cables, I'd be happy....we have 4 MB+ and somehow have lost every cable

 

[Robber Baron]

As far as I've been able to see, the biggest thing you will miss is waving your arms around like a crazy person trying to make some little statues do things they refuse to do.

 

[Genie+]

The MB+ features are fun. Besides interacting with the statues they light up in sync with different shows and connect with the in-park game apps (like Galaxy’s Edge). Some families may really enjoy that.

The design is the dealbreaker for me. I have very thin wrists just over 5.5” around. The face and stiff housing is quite a bit larger than MB2. It’s so uncomfortable and clunky for me. Prone to falling off. Never had problems with previous MBs.

 

[BigOnDis]

We acquired so many MagicBands over the years that they started to cause issues (it seems the system can only handle tracking a certain number of active bands for any given account), and about two years ago a CM marked a ton of our bands as lost/inactive in order to solve the problem. It worked, but now every time we want to use a band we haven't used in a while, we have to go into our accounts and make sure the band is marked as active.

And I thought I had a lot of magic bands, enough that my wife made garland out of ours, but I don't have enough to cause problems, at least not yet.....

 

[tx911]

Our MagicBand2's are about 3 years old by now. I assume the batteries are dead. But from what I can find, the RFID chip would allow us to still use them for...
- Park Entry scanning
- Multipass/LL scanning
- Resort Room entry

Are the only main features we'd be missing out on:
- Automatic linking of ride photos
- "light up" features / interactive features?

Can we still use it to scan for Memory Pass (photographer) photos? Anything else I'm missing?

You will definitely miss out on having to charge it every night, and falling asleep to the glow of its flashing green light

 

[Liastaob]

FYI, if you do DCL, they apparently only use MB+, so there's that. I'm not a big fan of the other features, since they only seem to work about 70% of the time.