​The 'Hey Disney' Voice Assistant from Amazon is coming to your home Echo devices

My children are infatuated with using home voice assistants. Every day, either my seven-year-old or three-year-old will ask Alexa or Google for the current weather, their favorite tunes, or the solution to some strange animal question. Many parents, I'm sure, can relate.

Imagine if, instead of Alexa, Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and nearly two dozen other Disney characters answered your children's questions. Depending on how much you adore Disney, this will either transport you to the magical world of Walt Disney World or become the misery of your existence.


Amazon revealed at CES 2023 that Hey Disney, Disney's first home voice assistant, will be available on Echo devices in the coming months via the Alexa Skills Store or as part of an Amazon Kids+ membership. The voice assistant interacts with kids, parents, and Disney Adults alike with a simple "Hey Disney!" The voice assistant interacts with kids, parents, and Disney Adults alike in many of the same ways you currently use the Alexa voice assistant, with some additional unique features such as Disney Trivia and Star Wars soundscapes to name a few.

At CES, Amazon and Disney gave Mashable a hands-on experience of the home voice assistant, which you can see in the video below:

We were able to ask Disney basic inquiries, such as the current weather, and have over 20 Disney, Pixar, and Star Wars characters react, such as Genie from Aladdin and Olaf from Frozen. We also heard an interactive story from Mater from Cars and set a 30-second timer with the help of Donald Duck throughout the demo. The primary voice assistant is known as Disney Magical Companion, and it leads the enquiry before passing it on to a random Disney character.

After seeing the demo, I felt the most intriguing aspect was how the voice assistant would connect with Disney's MagicBand+.

If you haven't visited a Disney theme park in the last decade, the MagicBand is a watch-sized wearable gadget that allows you to swiftly access the parks, skip lines using Disney's new FastPass system called Genie+, and much more. It's essentially your all-access pass to Disneyland and Disney World. The MagicBand+ is a premium version of the wearable that performs everything but incorporates interactive capabilities. For example, when you pass certain statues at Magic Kingdom, the MagicBand+ will light up, and when you tap the device, a voice from the statue will engage with you.

One big concern with the MagicBands is that they are useless outside of the parks. That will not be the case for long. When the timer set by Donald Duck went off in our demonstration, the connected MagicBand+ devices all lit up. According to Disney, future integrations will include the ability to play Disney Trivia with Hey Disney and several participants tapping on their MagicBand+ to buzz in and be the first to respond.
​Ejtandemonium.com