And yet, when you visit Disney World, the most remarkable thing about the MagicBands is that they don’t feel remarkable at all. It may look unpretentious, but the band connects you to a vast and powerful system of sensors within the park. The wristband has enough battery to last two years. Inside each is an RFID chip and a radio like those in a 2.4-GHz cordless phone.
The MagicBands look like simple, stylish rubber wristbands offered in cheery shades of grey, blue, green, pink, yellow, orange and red. Access points have an encircled Mickey logo which matches that of the bands, showing that they can be touched together for access. The design of the bands themselves teach users how they work. Tanner! She’ll be followed by another smiling person- Sit anywhere you like! Neither will mention that, by some mysterious power, your food will find you. If you’re wearing your Disney MagicBand and you’ve made a reservation, a host will greet you at the drawbridge and already know your name- Welcome Mr. You feel like you’re stepping across the pages of a storybook. Such pint-sized intimacy is a psychological hack invented by Walt Disney himself to make visitors feel larger than their everyday selves. Crossing a cartoon-like drawbridge, you see the parapets of a castle rising beyond a snow-dusted ridge, both rendered in miniature to appear far away. The restaurant lies beyond a gate of huge fiberglass boulders, painstakingly airbrushed to look like crumbling remnants of the past. Then, reserve a meal at a restaurant called Be Our Guest, using the Disney World app to order your food in advance. If you want to imagine how the world will look in just a few years, once our cell phones become the keepers of both our money and identity, skip Silicon Valley and book a ticket to Orlando.