Amazon develops hi-tech buzzing wristbands that bosses can use to track workers and order them around

Amazon has invented buzzing wristband trackers that can alert warehouse workers when customer orders need processing.

The online shopping giant’s “ultrasonic bracelets” were designed as their vast “fulfilment centres” become increasingly automated and are coping with high demand from Prime 24-hour and one-hour deliveries.

Designs show an employee wearing pulsing bands on one or both wrists. These receive alerts similar to the feel of on-screen smartphone button vibrations, guiding them to the correct warehouse shelves.

The bracelets give “confirmatory haptic feedback to the worker” and would also allow bosses to better monitor staff performance.

According to European Patent Office details “tracking one or both of the inventory system worker’s hands” could be done via transmitters installed in the shelves.

Diagrams show the same pigeon hole-style product boxes that Amazon uses in its warehouses, but the firm foresees its system being used on cargo ships or with humans working alongside robots.

Ultrasound, which is inaudible, can be used to measure distances and detect objects.

Amazon, gearing up for its Black Friday sales next month, thinks the system could help reduce human error.

But workplace stress expert Dr Teresa D’Oliveira, from King’s College London, warned that it could increase “physical or psychological pressures” on workers.

“Amazonians” are currently alerted to orders via a handheld module, though the company denies using GPS tags to track them.

Staff are under huge time pressures. A BBC investigation in 2013 found night-shift staff walked up to 11 miles every shift, and an undercover reporter was expected to collect an order every 33 seconds.