This may be a question for @len. Does anyone know if there is a way to test the battery levels of old MagicBands? Going in September and my DS6 wants to wear one from his last trip in 2016, but my guess is that the battery will be dead. Would hate to wear it only to get to the park and have it not work. I thought I read somewhere that it would likely work at tapstiles, just not be strong enough to pick up the RFID from afar for ride photos.
I didn’t know if you could take one to guest services and they could check it for you.
The RFID part of it (near-field) should work indefinitely. It does so because it is powered by an external magnetic field.
The part that needs the battery is the Bluetooth Low-Energy part that is used for tracking where you are in the the park (such as on ride photos, in the queue lines, etc). There is no easy way to detect if it is still working without specialized equipment that monitors the 2.4 GHz radio band…although, I think it COULD be possible to find a phone app that uses a phone’s Low-Energy Bluetooth to detect a signal. (Never tried.)
Anyhow, the RFID is used for tapping in to rides and the park, as well as your hotel room.
Thanks for that explanation! That is great to know. He’ll get a new one as part of our reservation, but he had a special Zootopia one from the last trip he wants to use. He’ll be excited to know he can use it (if I can find it).
Was it a MagicBand, or MagicBand2? If MagicBand2, then you should be able to just swap out the puck from the new one and put it into the old one. But if it is MagicBand (not 2), then you can’t do that.
It is a MagicBand. I don’t think the MagicBand2s were out then, but I could be mistaken. We stayed off-site that year, so we purchased ours.
And this is another reason why this community is so great and why the membership is worth every penny! Getting such quick, accurate responses is phenomenal.