How Well Does MagicMobile Work with Ride Photos/Videos?

JAB

JAB

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The MagicBands we have were purchased in late summer 2019 for a trip that was supposed to happen spring 2020 and which has been rescheduled multiple times over the past two years. Now that we're finally taking the trip spring 2022, and the MagicBands are nearly three years old, I'm worried about their batteries.

I know that MagicMobile is supposed to support automatic ride photo linking, and MagicBand-only ride photos/videos via Bluetooth LE, and since the MagicBands will still work for tapping in to touch points, I'd rather not buy not buy new bands if I don't have to, using the existing bands for touch points and MagicMobile on my phone for the long range functionality.

So what I'm wondering is if anyone has any real-world experiences with how well it actually works in practice. Does it work well enough to be a reliable substitute for the long range MagicBand features, or should we just bite the bullet and get new MagicBands?
 
JaxFLBear

JaxFLBear

Well-Known Member
MagicMobile (which uses NFC) is not used to automatically link ride photos/videos. Automatic linking of ride photos/videos uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). Bluetooth needs to be enabled on your smartphone and the MDE mobile app needs permission to access it.
 
JAB

JAB

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
pianos101 said:
I was just searching for the same answer. Have you gone yet? If so, how was using your phone on rides compared to a true MB?
Click to expand...
Haven't gone yet; soon, though. Unfortunately, I still haven't found a definitive answer to the question (some things I've found say it works great, but others say it doesn't work at all), so at this point, we're leaning toward just buying new MagicBands to be safe.


JaxFLBear said:
MagicMobile (which uses NFC) is not used to automatically link ride photos/videos. Automatic linking of ride photos/videos uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). Bluetooth needs to be enabled on your smartphone and the MDE mobile app needs permission to access it.
Click to expand...
Actually, both NFC for touch points and Bluetooth for automatic photo linking are part of the MagicMobile features. Regardless, my question was not about how to use the Bluetooth photo linking, but rather, "Does it work reliably enough to use in lieu of MagicBands?".
 
WorldExplorer

WorldExplorer

Well-Known Member
I can't answer the question, but wanted to mention something else. I know this is convoluted, but depending on your priorities it might be worth it.

Each park (plus Disney Springs) has a PhotoPass place near the entrance. These places have all the photos taken within the past forty five days and can give you them.

If you decided to take the chances with MagicMobile, you do have a safety net with these places. They look them up by time, so you would need to find a way to remember that, though (taking a picture at each attraction and then looking at it's data would be my plan).
 
Gillyanne

Gillyanne

Well-Known Member
WorldExplorer said:
Each park (plus Disney Springs) has a PhotoPass place near the entrance. These places have all the photos taken within the past forty five days and can give you them.

....They look them up by time, so you would need to find a way to remember that, though (taking a picture at each attraction and then looking at it's data would be my plan).
Click to expand...

You can also report missing photos online, or call the photopass number after your trip. I usually use the online. I don't use the MagicMobile so I can't speak to it's accuracy, but I have gone with some older MBs that were no longer strong enough for ride photos.

disneyworld.disney.go.com

Disney's PhotoPass

Disney PhotoPass captures photos and videos of you at select locations, attractions and Character Experiences.
disneyworld.disney.go.com disneyworld.disney.go.com
 
Diamond Dot

Diamond Dot

Well-Known Member
I don't know if anyone else has posted this, but, I went on Haunted Mansion and didn't scan the QR code at the entrance on my phone, I did on my second ride and got an attraction photo. It doesn't do it automatically as it does on Pirates or Slinky.
 
correcaminos

correcaminos

Well-Known Member
I've had no luck so far past 3 trips with it. Newer phone too. I also had no luck finding a ride photo that I asked them to search for that was missed but 9 times out of 10 they find it.
 
Ldno

Ldno

Well-Known Member
Could had sworn that ride videos and pictures were a perk of purchasing Photopass, it’s been always automatic when I had it available, the one time i had problems with it is when the entire ride was having problems taking pictures per se, but the pictures and videos are always recording everytime.
 
LittleMerman

LittleMerman

Well-Known Member
We went a few months ago and it worked decently with ride photos/videos. We were annoyed because it wouldn't let us pay for anything and we were staying at AKL. We were there for nine days and the system never worked once. We went to guest services multiple times because we really wanted to use it for convenience and were very disappointed.
 
M

MagicCarrie

New Member
Bring your MagicBands, you’ll know if they are working pretty quick and surely if they are working, they won’t all fail on the same ride so you’ll figure out if one needs to be replaced b/c it’ll stop scanning at all. You’ll have your phone/watch as back up, too, if one stops working at an inopportune moment. FYI, you have to use iPhone or a MagicBand for WDW resort room entry. WatchOS does not work for some reason. We have a MagicBand from Feb. 2019 that worked a couple weeks ago.
Edit: so the technology is different for ride photos, but I think you’d be ok if you are all sticking together most of the time as it pulls from friends and family photo accounts, as well. You can check out how it did after one of the rides that uses that tech and see if the photos got pulled or not and go from there. Kinda a pain, but maybe better than $$$ on MagicBands that are about to upgrade. Not all rides use this, either. Some you scan your band.
 
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WorldExplorer

WorldExplorer

Well-Known Member
MagicCarrie said:
Bring your MagicBands, you’ll know if they are working pretty quick and surely if they are working, they won’t all fail on the same ride so you’ll figure out if one needs to be replaced b/c it’ll stop scanning at all. You’ll have your phone/watch as back up, too, if one stops working at an inopportune moment. FYI, you have to use iPhone or a MagicBand for WDW resort room entry. WatchOS does not work for some reason. We have a MagicBand from Feb. 2019 that worked a couple weeks ago.
Edit: so the technology is different for ride photos, but I think you’d be ok if you are all sticking together most of the time as it pulls from friends and family photo accounts, as well. You can check out how it did after one of the rides that uses that tech and see if the photos got pulled or not and go from there. Kinda a pain, but maybe better than $$$ on MagicBands that are about to upgrade. Not all rides use this, either. Some you scan your band.
Click to expand...
The photos have a window of two days to show up. So if it shows up quickly then you know it worked, but if it doesn't you don't really know for sure until the two day mark.
 
M

MagicCarrie

New Member
WorldExplorer said:
The photos have a window of two days to show up. So if it shows up quickly then you know it worked, but if it doesn't you don't really know for sure until the two day mark.
Click to expand...
Yea, true, but I would say it’s the exception that it takes that long. I would take the risk vs pay for MagicBand x 4 right now since the new ones are about to come out. Also, noting the time/day that one rides those attractions is a back up if you really want those photos and are willing to do the extra work at a PhotoPass location.
 

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