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    Guides
    Kate Gray
    Written By
    Kate Gray
    Published
    2/2/23

    How to use sculk sensors

    Tutorial Difficulty: 4/10

    When sculk sensors were announced at Minecraft Live 2020, there were three types of response: "Meh, it's not frogs, and I want frogs" from the people who want new mobs, not blocks, "Oh, that's cool" from the casual redstone users,  and "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" from the people who really, REALLY love redstone.

    You see, the sculk sensor enables one really cool feature: wireless redstone. Sculk sensors can detect vibrations, which mean they can complete a circuit just by sensing movement or change nearby, instead of requiring redstone dust paths to activate them. The types of things they can sense range from something as quiet as a bat flapping its wings, all the way up to the noisiest things in Minecraft: explosions and lightning strikes.

    The sensors are part of the deep dark biome, where the Warden — who also moves around by detecting sound — lives. As you can tell by the name, the deep dark is very, very dark, and much like real-world nocturnal creatures like moles, shrews, and bats, everything that lives in the deep dark survives without the use of sight. Moles use smell and bats use echolocation, but sculk sensors use soundwaves. Isn't that cool?

    I'm more of a builder than a programmer, so I won't pretend to understand the potential applications of wireless redstone, but luckily for me (and you!), BlenDigi has put together some "simple" sculk sensor builds to get us started.

    Image from Minecraft of a large blank, white wall divided into 2 images with the left showing a red dotted line making the outline of a doorway with words HIDDEN DOOR above and the right showing some white stone stairs with the words AUTO STAIRS above

    BlenDigi offers us five ideas: A door that opens when you walk towards it, a staircase that pops out from the wall, motion sensor lights (like in bathrooms!), motion sensor fireworks (not like in bathrooms!), and a wireless piston door that will make you feel like you're a villain in a movie.

    The only problem is that the sculk sensors do make a bit of a creepy noise when they sense movement or sound, which sounds a bit like someone gargling marbles (although you can apparently silence it by waterlogging the block). If you don't mind the marble-gargle, then the idea of having automatic doors and lights in your house is pretty thrilling. It'll be like you're one of those rich people with a Smart Home! Maybe one day we'll be able to say, "Sculky, play Pigstep on the Jukebox" and we'll be able to do almost everything without lifting a finger.

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