Disney's New Wristband Brings Games to Theme Parks

Speaker 1: Disney has leveled up its high tech wristband. This is magic band. Plus it lights up, it plays games. I'm gonna tell you all about it and how it works. Speaker 1: So Disney's set up this little demo area to give us a taste, but it's not working yet in the parks. And I'm so curious to really get a full experience and see what it's like. Magic bands have been around Walt Disney world since 2013. These are R F I D bands that hold [00:00:30] info on your ticket and activities for the day. You can use them to tap, to enter a park, enter your hotel room. It also knows when you have a reservation to bypass long ride lines. Now these bands are not necessary to get around the park, but they have been used by Disney to add little interactive perks in some areas. A good example of this is at star wars Galaxy's edge, depending on what you do on the rides or in the land. Your server at the Cantina may get an alert and mention something [00:01:00] to you about your day. The, this upgrade takes it up a notch by giving you something to wear, to play particular games, it buzzes and lights up to clue you into something that you can do nearby. There will be missions all over the park. In particular, there is one at star wars Galaxy's edge. That's the land of a two where you can do a job for the, be two bounty hunter skills. You would take your band over to a job board. This is by the garage area. And when you go there, you'll have to tap your band to an activation area to [00:01:30] kind of get started on your mission. Speaker 1: At this point, you'll get messages in your play Disney parks app to tell you who they're on the look at for, and how to hunt them down. And really you're just kind of walking around, seeing if you're close or far based on how this thing is flashing. Green means you're getting warmer and red is gonna mean that maybe you're getting too far away. Now when you've arrived at the right place and have found the droid you're looking for, or the alien creature you're looking [00:02:00] for, you know, general scum and Villa, uh, then you'll get alert on your band. It'll vibrate. It'll light up. You'll get a push alert on your app and I'll tell you what to do next. You don't know what kind of mission you're gonna get each time and it'll be a different door for every mission. So not everyone's gonna be crowding around the same area, but in this case, if my guy is behind this door, Let's scan it. Come on, show yourself. Speaker 2: Whoa. Speaker 1: He's a big guy. Speaker 2: [00:02:30] Hello there. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: I got, I gotcha. Found Ja bad. You, he comes from Ja nothing good comes from Ja. So if you're running around and maybe you're having a hard time, there's gonna be a lot of different, uh, push notifications, different elements that they're trying you to kind of nudge you along. Cause they don't want you just wandering around the whole day with different color lights. So the app will work in different ways. If you wanna just restart [00:03:00] or get a new job, you can do that too. And through the play Disney parks app, it's gonna clue you in on where to accept a job. So if you're new to the area, you don't have to wander around lost. This is not the only new twist to magic bands. Uh, recently I saw a similar experience being incorporated at Disney galactic star cruiser. That's the two night star wars hotel, the immersive theater experience. And I have a whole video. You can check out here about that. Now as a guest, you used both the magic band and the play app to go on quest and [00:03:30] do missions for the resistance or the first order, but this magic band, plus with bounty hunting as a level of immersiveness, which is going to be available to one, visiting the theme park, not just for people who pay extra to experience the star cruiser. Speaker 1: There's another mission to play Disney parks app. It's the fab 50 quest, or you have to go find these golden statues around while Disney world. And if you get close enough, your magic band will kind of go off and you have to. There we [00:04:00] go. So now I'm getting a little vibration and I have to wave my hand and spread tinker Bell's magic tinker. Gosh, Speaker 3: Sure is a nice day. Speaker 1: Ha ha. There you go. And the more of these you go around and collect. You'll be able to do different AR things in the app. So it's just more interactivity and more entertainment as you go about your day. So these are the 16 different as designs that will be available to buy. When it goes on sale in the summer, some are pretty, uh, basic with a solid color. Others have different characters, different sayings designs. [00:04:30] My particular favorites are gonna be, uh, the one that's themed for star wars Galaxy's edge, cuz it just kind of looks cool. Um, I also like the retro throwback, uh, but you know what you pick, they're all gonna be able to do all the activities it's gonna come fully charged outta the box. But depending on how much you're using it on your vacation, you're probably gonna wanna top off the battery when you're back in your room. So you would just plug it in and snap it in. There will be instructions inside. I'm told that [00:05:00] will tell you if it's flashing a certain color light you'll know that the battery's low. Yes, this is still waterproof. Just like the old version. So you can still wear it when you're at the hotel pool. Speaker 1: There's another new twist to this magic band plus works with Amazon's voice assistant, but we don't know how yet Disney is not giving examples, but I do have some ideas. So if you stay at a Disney property hotel, uh, later this year in Florida, uh, they're gonna have these echo show five devices [00:05:30] with their own special assistant called Hey Disney. So if I get in the room and this is gonna work with Alexa, what's it gonna tell my device? Is it gonna let me know? Hey, I see thought you do all those quests in the park today. Is it gonna react maybe to all the credits I earned at Galaxy's edge? Is it gonna say, Hey, you, you found Mickey today in the Mickey statue. What exactly is this pairing with Alexa? And also I hope to see a lot more than just statues [00:06:00] and star wars Galaxy's edge in terms of interactivity, they say it's gonna be able to work at the night shows, maybe it'll flash in certain ways and kind of match the lighting of whatever show you're at. Speaker 1: Uh, it would be so cool if like you're in line for a ride and something happens in the pre-show you get a buzz that kind of brings it all together. There's a lot of potential here to be able to level up different moments in your park experience, especially when you're waiting in these long lines, you want some fun things to do. I would love to be able to maybe buzz and tap different things [00:06:30] if I'm waiting in an hour long or more line. So we still have to see what else to come. As far as pride goes, Disney is not saying the exact price yet. It could be a range. Uh, there was a day where it went on sale for a few hours and was taken down and some of the plain colors, the solid colors, they were 29 99, but it could cost more if there's a character right now, the magic bands that are on sale do have a range of prices, depend on what character is on the band. Speaker 1: By making this another gadget you have to charge, but also giving you a new [00:07:00] way to play games in the parks. This is interesting that Disney's kind of leading the way and doing more interactivity, adding more tech as part of your vacation. So I'm looking forward to seeing what else they can do. And I am interested in how other theme park companies, how other entertainment venues may look at the this and go, Hey, you know what? People are more welcome to have a wearable and go around and experience and use technology to kind of enhance their entertainment. Now magic band plus is coming to Disneyland in California. Uh, that [00:07:30] park has never had a magic band before. Uh, when it comes to Florida, they have had magic bands and that upgrade will be coming sometime in the summer, no exact date yet. I'm looking forward to seeing where they can take this. If you have ideas on what they can do with magic bands in the park, let me know in the comments in the meantime, hit like and subscribe for more. Thanks for watching. Boom. It's a wrap. Speaker 4: Oh boy.