Ever since the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts announced the magic bands, we've been waiting for their next big announcement into the future of these bands and the latest FCC filings are hinting at the successor to the magic bands.
While product updates, especially across the technology sector, are part of the status quo. Disney is showing in their latest FCC filings the potential future of these devices. While earlier in the year Disney submitted to the FCC documentation for the second revision of the first generation of Magic Bands, these were slimmer than the original MagicBands.
These pucks are however fascinating, because while they show the future of the MyMagic + devices. With the Orlando Sentinel report of Disney ultimately wanting to go to Cell Phones, these would be seen as an excellent first step to that goal. However, some of the information in the in the FCC filing is hinting otherwise for these pucks.
The radio frequency document that was released on August 15th shows that the device is classified as a "proprietary 2.4 GHz GFSK radio in a wristband form factor." The MagicBands have proved to Disney that they are a lucrative buy as you can get customized bands with almost any Disney character you want on it. While the external photos of the device won't come out until February of next year (the first magic band saw a six-month embargo as well), other that what has been published in the ID Label document, we can assume at this point that a wristband portion will have a much greater emphasis than being sold separately as an accessory, and the FCC documentation is currently helping to support that.
While some will be upset early one that these don't come with a wristband build onto the device, and I do agree about that and will address that a bit later in the article. This could be a greater boon to Disney. Since the next generation MagicBands appear to be very small and without the actual wristband portions naturally made with the unit itself, this will allow for Disney to sell these second generation MagicBands packaged with the more popular selling character bands they have as a set.
However, with the actual puck being not having the physical wristband attached natively to the puck, it does question the durability. Not having the physical wristband attached natively to these pucks will make it easier if the wristbands do break to loose the puck. Without a formal announcement yet from the Walt Disney Company, we don't exactly know when we should see these MagicBands coming out, but since they just received the authorization from the FCC, we can see them as early as right around the new year if prior testing and rollout of the first revision of the magic bands showed, since for them it was 2 months between the rollout and the embargo release from the FCC.
