Amazon to start tracking hand movements of employees. If workers slack off, wristband will know.

Amazon has been issued with patents for a wristband that can track its wearer and vibrate to guide their hands in a specific direction.The patents cover bracelets that can emit ultrasonic sound pulses or radio transmissions to alert a receiver system as to where workers hands are in relation to inventory bins.

The bracelet tracking technology has raised moral questions about privacy, as they could monitor workers’ efficiency in real-time. And Amazon has faced fierce criticism in recent years for setting high targets, timed-toilet breaks and packing timers to ensure workers pack enough boxes per hour.

Amazon patents device that could track workers' hand movements in real-time

In theory, Amazon's proposed technology would emit ultrasonic sound pulses and radio transmissions to track where an employee's hands were in relation to inventory bins, and provide "haptic feedback" to steer the worker toward the correct bin.

The aim, Amazon says in the patent, is to streamline the "time consuming" task of responding to orders and packaging them for speedy delivery. With guidance from a wristband, workers could fill orders faster.

Critics say such wristbands raise concerns about privacy and would add a new layer of surveillance to the workplace, and that the use of the devices could result in employees being treated more like robots than humans.

NY Times- If workers slack off, wristband will know

Hearing this makes me wonder, how it will be used. Considering current Amazon policies on employees, I believe, this can have more negative consequences than positive ones. This technology also creates possibility for other companies to start using similar technologies, which can make the life of employees much harder than it already is

In my eyes, technology should be used in order to make people more productive, while making their life easier, not for making them work like robots with maximum efficiency and no privacy. That is what automation/robots are for. This technology can be used for both. The guidance system can make the life of employee's easier, although the hand movement tracking can create expectations of them to work like robots.

Inhuman evil raises it's ugly head....

So, in the Air Force we ran up against non-judicial punishment.......stomped that with thw U C M J.........

If they were not informed of this when hired...it won't stick.......

No problem, most people nowadays love their chains...

The information will be used to program their robotic replacements.

a reply to: Cabin

These greedy mother#ers already duck out of their fair share of taxes. Trotting from one island haven to another. Now they want more than their fair share of toil and sweat.

They're too big to take down and monopolize the marketplace . FFS my family always uses amazon and we aren't about stopping. Something needs to change.

I work in a warehouse environment. Doing similar to what they do in Amazon. Even our bosses understand that when it's crazy busy, you can't push workers too much or they just slow down out of protest. It's happened a few times.
I used to get stressed and run around like a loon. But the faster you go the more mistakes you make.

It'll be interesting if this technology actually gets used.

Now that everything a white male does is sexual assault/ harrasement.

Those wrist bands must get be getting a work k out in a bathroom stall...if you know what I mean and I think you do .....

Could represent a massive constant real time data stream for training an ai to run massive automation facilities

a reply to: Cabin

a reply to: Cabin

I don't see the problem, don't like it, don't work at Amazon.

originally posted by: Argen
The information will be used to program their robotic replacements.

And like we were told in the 50's, everyone will have robots do everything for them while we ALL enjoy the fruits of that technology LOL.

It will mean more unemployed people, not enjoying the fruits of that technology is the sad truth.
People say other jobs will be created as automation increases but this is false.

One proof in this is, it has been an employers market for years where there are more people than jobs.
Wages have also declined over the years due to supply and demand for workers.
That puts the nail in the coffin that new jobs will be created. Where are all the excess jobs now?
If we had jobs in excess, it would be an employees market with wages rising.

if it can zap em when they skiving will order couple thousand .

originally posted by: SilverOwls
They're too big to take down and monopolize the marketplace .

How so? I seem to get buy without using them other then when I get Amazon birthday gift cards from relatives.

originally posted by: SilverOwls
a reply to: Cabin

These greedy mother#ers already duck out of their fair share of taxes. Trotting from one island haven to another. Now they want more than their fair share of toil and sweat.

They're too big to take down and monopolize the marketplace . FFS my family always uses amazon and we aren't about stopping. Something needs to change.

I never understood how some can complain about the power of government but not the power of corporations.
It an employers market, they have all the power. There is no "choice" either where you either starve or work for them.
A lot of the people running these Big Corporations did not start that "their own business" either.

The first few years of opening a business are the hardest and the owner put a lot of risk for rewards into it.
In the Big Corporations today, they were not started by the business owner and unlike the small business, risk is passed down to the employees while the one that did not start the business walks away with a golden parachute.

There is something seriously wrong with that.

I do my best not buy anything from King Bezo.

King Bezos the Tyrant.

The Amazon warehouse where I live is pretty notorious for being one of the worst places to work.

a reply to: Cabin


I'm of 2 minds on this;

One the one hand, it's sounds draconian, evil, and absolutely wrong. It sounds cruel. Something akin to slavery and only it's now "electronic chains" instead of ones made of iron.

On the other hand, it may be seen as a requirement for working there, and if that's the case, don't work there. If I got a job where I had to pick up dog poop all day long, but then complained because all day long I had to deal with dog poop, then who's at fault?

Is Amazon the bastion of evil? Absolutely.

Is Amazon violating freedoms? Sure is.

But who is being forced to work there? With the growth of manufacturing and business development, people now have more options to do more things and can tell Bezos to go # himself.

Personally? I'm creeped out by this.

a reply to: Cabin

Those who work in fulfillments primary area of loss is mispicks. It happens quite often with human error thst the wrong sku/size etc... is shipped, kicking off a cascade of losses in shipping, returns and restocking, all of which deeply effect profit and multiplied by numerous incidents...can destroy profit altogether.

The bracelets are intended to mitigate mispicks and streamline invoice fulfillment. They are NOT for checking whether or not an employee is picking his or her nose etc...

People are lucky theyre going this route and keeping humans in jobs rather than going fully automaton, where they would save more and profit vastly more with little or no mistakes.

Add time to the equation and these wrist band wearers will have adopted it as a 6th sense, one in which they give a predominant amount of their awareness as they drone on in their assembly line.

Makes me wonder what 40 hours of mindless misplaced awareness does to a human being. Can they still think critically afterwards?

originally posted by: BlueJacket
a reply to: Cabin


People are lucky theyre going this route and keeping humans in jobs rather than going fully automaton, where they would save more and profit vastly more with little or no mistakes.

So you are saying that Amazon is in the business of creating jobs for workers out of the goodness of their own hearts and foregoing potential profits?

originally posted by: chadderson


Makes me wonder what 40 hours of mindless misplaced awareness does to a human being. Can they still think critically afterwards?

It is mind numbingly dull!
I worked in factory assembly while putting myself through college and the day seemed to go on forever.

Now I get paid a lot more doing something I like.
You could not pay me enough to go back to doing that.

I'm positive Amazon makes enough money to hire more workers if they need them, rather than resorting to something like this. If they want to know who the slackers are, they can hire someone to spy. I'd rather have another person watching me, than wear something like this. Ugh.