Is 'Made With Magic'/'Glow With the Show' still a thing?

[cobright]

Okay, I haven't been away for that long, and I do remember seeing the ears during the fireworks show, but I can't seem to find any of the glow products in the Disney Store.

I know they released a new version of the glow ears in 2018 that would sync with the Disney store app on your phone to let them sync with a televised Christmas special.

And then I just sort of ... stopped paying attention. In particular, I need to find one of those blinky Mickey gloves, but if the whole thing is winding down maybe I won't bother.

 

[OKW Lover]

Can't say I've seen those around for quite some time

 

[Robo]

Okay, I haven't been away for that long, and I do remember seeing the ears during the fireworks show, but I can't seem to find any of the glow products in the Disney Store.

I know they released a new version of the glow ears in 2018 that would sync with the Disney store app on your phone to let them sync with a televised Christmas special.

And then I just sort of ... stopped paying attention. In particular, I need to find one of those blinky Mickey gloves, but if the whole thing is winding down maybe I won't bother.

They stopped selling them awhile back.

AFAIK, if you have one (or buy one on eBay,) it still will "operate with the shows" as it used to.

 

[cobright]

They stopped selling them awhile back.
AFAIK, if you have one (or buy one on eBay,) it still will "operate with the shows" as it used to.

That makes sense. A little bit of a surprise because the Glow Ears V3 in 2018 was a major upgrade. They switched to a much more powerful microprocessor SoC and added bluetooth. Which seemed odd to me at the time because I don't recall the things ever being a must-have. I mean, we bought the kids a set back in '13 and never took them back to the parks (the ears, not the kids).

But I've done a couple custom projects for friends who wanted the lighting effect without wearing the ears. The Mickey glove had the best circuit board for modding and I used my last one a couple years ago to make a set of custom headlights for a mobility scooter.

Being cooped up has my looking for projects to keep busy but I suppose I'll just let this one go.

 

[yorkieteacher]

We took our Mickey hand wand in March and it didn't interact-we could make it change colors and all still, and granted it was purchased in 2017.

 

[Skywise]

That was such a cool idea but - a> they were too heavy to wear (the mickey ears anyway) b> too expensive. So instead of seeing this sea of color and light changes in the audience you'd see about one or two at a time.

I think if they had gotten the price down around $10 they would've sold a lot better or integrate the tech into something that was worth the $25 (like maybe sync'd lightsabers or maybe premium magicbands with LEDs in them)

 

[Kevin_W]

They look cool when they do aerial crowd shots of the shows for TV, but when I'm watching a show I want to see the actual show and not some bright light on the head in front of me. Plus, I'm short - so that's a few more inches for me to see over top of. So personally, I'm glad they never caught on.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Yeah, I rank those ears as my dumbest Disney purchase in our WDW travels. Totally impractical and annoyingly expensive.

 

[cobright]

Yeah, I rank those ears as my dumbest Disney purchase in our WDW travels. Totally impractical and annoyingly expensive.

I agree. We bought a set when they first came out, mainly because it was something new, with a lot of pretty cool tech going on inside it. Developing the thing was a risk and even if I didn't care much about that particular product, I kinda wanted to reward them for taking the chance.

I liked the idea of the items interacting with the environment more than reacting to a show. Like changing color to match the flag of each country in world showcase, or changing to theme in the different areas of the park.

 

[YawningDodo]

I agree. We bought a set when they first came out, mainly because it was something new, with a lot of pretty cool tech going on inside it. Developing the thing was a risk and even if I didn't care much about that particular product, I kinda wanted to reward them for taking the chance.

I liked the idea of the items interacting with the environment more than reacting to a show. Like changing color to match the flag of each country in world showcase, or changing to theme in the different areas of the park.

I think they finally caught onto this with the droids in Galaxy's Edge. It's the first souvenir I've bought that I'm actually planning to bring back and carry around on my next trip because it was so charming having this little robot in my bag making noises whenever I was in the right part of the park (think they missed an opportunity by failing to add a bluetooth signal to Tower of Terror that would make any droids riding it scream, though).

A $100 droid is a heck of a price tag, though. You'd think they could pull off something simpler and less expensive and make it a wearable.