RFID....the future?

Are you reading this thread? I'm not the one saying they are tracking anyone. I only answered your question.

Orlando Mike said:

99er said:
All the Disney issued costumes have RFID tags in them. Plus I would assume there are RFID chips in the company issued ID.

You really think they have the time to track company issued costumes? LOL You're really reading too much into the Magic band program!

As a former Cast Member, I can vouch that they do have RFID chips built into their uniforms. Each cast member has to "scan" their costumes out prior to leaving the costuming building. Every single uniform.

When I was a CM in 2012, our ID's didn't have the RFID chips in them, but this was also just when FastPass+ was still being beta tested. Every CM now should have a blue ID with a RFID chip in it.

Just because they have them doesn't mean they're readable beyond a few inches.

I'm a huge advocate of the whole "technology improving our lives one step at a time" but I do not like the thought of Disney tracking guest's movements through Magic Band. Their purchase history and demographics should provide ample information to create the data trends they are searching for.

By using long-range readers, I feel they are crossing the line. This is an amusment park, not an Invisible Fence.

You aren't required to use them. The ticket cards and/or room keys do the same thing.

As someone who worked at Disney World at an attraction that had the RFID card swiped at the entrance for wait times, let me tell you that in theory they should work great... However, if you think about it, if a card is swiped again at the end of the line, and the group waited 90 minutes, that's how long the line was 90 minutes ago, not necessarily how long it is now. Those boards required constant manual adjustment.

Jeff said:

The bands don't communicate. The presence of RFID tags are read, but nothing talks back to them. The coverage of the readers is also not nearly as extensive as they would like, and it's not locking your door.

Let me rephrase, I did not mean that bands are locking the door, the door locks and the bands both communicate back to a long range reader that is placed in each hotel room. Those long range readers are wifi enabled back to the hub, which is placed in a smaller amount of rooms, then connected via cable modem to the headend.

I am guessing range of about 10-20 feet, but it could be further since the bands are active. Remember your sunpass transponser in the car is fully passive, and it can be read in excess of 100mph from 18 feet.

The cast members are most certainly tracked, as if you look at all doors in the hotel leading to backstage areas they all are equipped with band readers, do the cm's wear bands i do not know, they may just use comapny id. But I would bet they are tracked long range as the guest is.

Lastly, for the person who stated it is just a number and you cannot be tracked, remember that your "number" is linked to your account/tickets/folio. They know where your band is in the resort, and chances are that you are wearing it. If your number was truly just a number, you would not be able to pay for items, gain access to rides/rooms, etc.

CedarPoint? said:
do the cm's wear bands i do not know, they may just use comapny id. But I would bet they are tracked long range as the guest is.

Cast Members do not wear Magic Bands. Access is granted by using their company ID via a card reader or tap access (like hotel rooms).

So, did some more digging on the bands themselves and found some info on how they work. The bands have two rfid tags inside, a passive tag that operates at 13.56MHz for short distance readers, and an active tag operating in the 2.4GHz band. The tags have a transmit power just under 1mW and the long range readers have transmit power of just over 1mW. The readers use antennas limited to 2dB gain. Now according to some research on RFID, the tags that are active can be read up to 300 feet. But of course that is generic information.

If I look at wifi home routers, I see that the average power is around 100mW, but those routers are capable of ranges that are hundreds of feet, and that is obstructed, if you take one outside and have nothing in the way you can go for much greater distances. Given the fact that to gain 3dB you must double your transmit power the bands should be capable of at least 50 feet, and probably a bit more. But I am by no means a broadcast engineer, so I could be totally wrong here.

Either way, not trying to complain, but next time I visit, I will opt for the card, and keep it in an rfid blocker sleeve. I don't need them watching my every move.

Dude, WiFi and RFID have nothing to do with each other.

True, but I see where he's going with the logic, and it makes some sense. RF is RF, more or less, whether it is RFID, WiFi, Bluetooth, or broadcasting. And the critical variables are frequency, transmit power, and signal strength. So it stands to reason that if you understand the characteristics of one RF transmission method, you should be able to interpolate that to another method. Particularly if you are dealing with similar frequencies. It seems reasonable that a 1mw RFID signal at 2.5 GHz would have similar propagation characteristics to a 100mw WiFi signal at 2.5 GHz, adjusting for the lower power and accounting for the inverse square relationship between signal strength and distance.

Of course that turns out not to quite be the case not because the physics are different, but because the signals are different...WiFi carries a lot of error correction and handshaking overhead that I don't believe exists with RFID, so WiFi will be more reliable at the same signal strength. But from a purely electromagnetic perspective, the comparison is not a bad one.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I forsee a day when Tony posts Tweetups and offers "coins, front-of-line tickets, or implanted RFID chips for your brain."

You're stretching, Dave. My cell phone and EZ-Pass works with RF too, and they still have absolutely nothing to do with each other when talking about MagicBands.

But thats just the thing, they really do. An RF signal is an RF signal, the ez pass and the magicband work almost exactly the same. But the band has a passive and an active tag. The cell phone also uses an analog RF signal as a carrier wave and uses digital modulation to cram multiple devices in the same frequency band. But at the end of the day, most if not all RF signals follow the same logarithimic properties for distance/attenuation vs. power. Wavelength matters here as well, the reason I used wifi to compare is that wifi operates in the exact same frequency range as the magic bands. Specifically 802.11b/g channel 13/14 (2472-2484MHz). The bands are operating at tx-2476MHz and the access points are at tx-2482MHz. I cannot tell you the exact range of the bands, but I can say that it is almost certainly over 50ft based on some searching. The signal that the bands emit is a simple binary identifier, there is no form of error correction, and obviously this affects the usable distance. Many RFID sites claim 300ft and sometimes more.

So what does all of this actually mean?

Well there are two possible operations for the bands, they are either beacons, broadcasting a signal at a predetermined interval. Or they are transponders, they transmit their identifier when the access points send a request.

Something that can be done with any RF signal is triangulation, so if I have a minimum of three fixed points, I can locate a moving RF signal within so many feet. The more fixed points, the more accurate the location. In theory Disney could be able to pinpoint your location in the park within 10-20 feet. Maybe more or less. Lost child anyone? No problem, he is right there! Imagine the level of data they can obtain.

This system is in use in warehouses/hospitals/factories to track inventory, search RTLS.

Please note, I do not mean to complain, or say this is a problem, just taking this to a level that most people wouldn't even dream of. Just wait for the day the government implants these things in all of us :)

Dude, WiFi is not reading MagicBands.

No, I know that it is not, WiFi operates at the same frequencies as the active transmitter in the magicband. Which is why I used it in my comparison a few posts back. The magicband's active rfid tag operates in the 802.11b/g bands. Obviously the bands do not communicate on wifi, please note I am using access point as a generic term to represent a device which takes the wireless communication and bridges it onto the wired network. Let me call it a long range reader instead as I went back to the user manuals and check to see what they are using for terminology.

Quick sidenote, a wifi access point can read active rfid tags. PCWorld Article

How the reading occurs I don't really know, it is one of the two ways I mentioned, either a beacon or transponder setup. The tag emits its signal, that signal is captured by the long range reader, the reader either requested for the tag to send signal, or the tag sent signal by itself depending on the transmission mode.

Either way the technology is impressive, and can do far more than most parkgoers have anticipated or thought about. Disney did not spend $1 billion plus on a system to help speed up gate entry and track fastpasses or pay your bill in the park. Those are the tangible benefits required to get the guest to buy into the program. Disney is interested in the data, plan and simple.