I've been working on tech inside the Amazon Fulfillment Centers got the last six years. I travel to different FCs every week in my current role. I have never heard of nor seen these wristbands.

Amazon has a tool to make it very easy for any idea anyone has to be patented. If I think it some crazy idea today, I can fill in a form describing it and lawyers will see if it's a valid patentable idea, then file the needed paperwork. Half the ideas may never be thought about again. That's where this came from, almost certainly.

Just because Amazon patents an idea doesn't mean it becomes real. It just means that if they ever decide to do it, they can't be sued by someone else who patented it.

On a side note IBM has a similar process for parenting things. We’ll obviously cover content that goes into a product, but we also allow more hypothetical ideas assuming they Pass a series of tests for value originality and some other points.

Fair enough, but there have been quite a number of stories about working conditions in Amazon warehouses, and it doesn't sound particularly pleasant, hand-tracking wristbands or no.