Overview
A sculk sensor is a wireless redstone input that reacts to vibration rather than to contact. Anything that makes a game-recognised sound within 8 blocks — a footstep, a block placed or broken, a door, a chest opening, a projectile landing, water flowing, a mob dying — triggers it, and it outputs a redstone signal whose strength encodes which kind of vibration it detected, from 1 to 15. That means a comparator behind a sensor can distinguish walking from a chest opening, which is what makes hidden doors and alarms that only respond to one specific action possible. After firing it goes on a short cooldown of about 2 seconds during which it ignores everything, so it is a pulse source rather than a continuous detector. The counter-mechanic is wool: wool blocks and carpets absorb vibrations completely, so a wool-lined floor is invisible to a sensor, and a wool block placed between the source and the sensor blocks the signal. That is also how you build in the deep dark without waking a warden. Sensors generate in the deep dark and can only be collected with Silk Touch — there is no crafting recipe for one.
Wireless triggers with no wiring or pressure plates — hidden doors, base alarms, farms that react to a mob dying, and detectors that fire only for one specific kind of vibration through a comparator.
In Minecraft 1.21.4, Sculk Sensor is a stone-family block. Hardness 1.5 puts it in the middle of the pack for mining speed. Light level 1 is decorative rather than functional — mobs can still spawn beside it.
With a blast resistance of only 1.5 it will not survive an explosion. Sixty-four fit in one inventory slot. The one thing it makes is Calibrated Sculk Sensor.
How to get it
Silk Touch is the only way to collect one. Sculk sensors are not craftable: they generate in the deep dark below Y 0, and a sculk catalyst spreads more of them every time a mob dies within 8 blocks of it. 3 amethyst shards placed around a sculk sensor make a calibrated sculk sensor, which is the one recipe the family does have.
Tips
- Wool and carpet absorb vibrations entirely; lay wool to make a corridor a sensor cannot hear.
- A comparator reads the vibration type as a signal from 1 to 15, so you can filter for footsteps or a chest alone.
- The 2-second cooldown means it cannot detect two events in quick succession — plan around a pulse, not a switch.
- Sneaking produces no vibration at all, which is both the way past someone's alarm and the way past a warden.
Version notes
Added in 1.17 (Caves & Cliffs part one) ahead of the deep dark itself; unchanged in 1.21.4.
How long it takes to break
Sculk Sensor has a hardness of 1.5. By hand that is 2.3 seconds per block; with the correct tool at netherite tier it is 0.25 seconds.
You are looking at 0.4 seconds on iron and 0.3 on diamond — the diamond step is where the time actually falls.
No particular tool tier is required: any tool, or none at all, still yields the drop, so the table below is about speed rather than about whether you get anything.
Efficiency contributes its level squared plus one to tool speed, which makes Efficiency V roughly 2.5 times faster than the plain tool.
| Tool | No enchantment | Efficiency III | Efficiency V |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hand | 2.3 s | 2.3 s | 2.3 s |
| Wooden | 1.2 s | 0.2 s | 0.1 s |
| Stone | 0.6 s | 0.2 s | 0.1 s |
| Iron | 0.4 s | 0.15 s | 0.1 s |
| Diamond | 0.3 s | 0.15 s | 0.1 s |
| Netherite | 0.25 s | 0.15 s | 0.1 s |
| Golden | 0.2 s | 0.15 s | 0.1 s |
Properties
With 1.5 blast resistance Sculk Sensor goes down to any nearby explosion. It is fully opaque and glows at light level 1. A single slot takes 64, the usual full stack. Being renewable, it can be produced indefinitely in one world. The block is tagged for hoes, and only that class gets the speed bonus; everything else mines at bare-hand rate.
- Transparent
- No
- Required tool
- Any
- Renewable
- Yes
Used to craft
Sculk Sensor is an ingredient in 1 recipes, producing Calibrated Sculk Sensor.
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How do you get Sculk Sensor in Minecraft?
Sculk Sensor generates naturally in the world and does not drop anything without Silk Touch.
What tool do you need to break Sculk Sensor?
No specific tool is required — Sculk Sensor can be broken by hand.
Is Sculk Sensor blast resistant?
Sculk Sensor has a blast resistance of 1.5, so an explosion nearby will destroy it.
How many Sculk Sensor fit in one stack?
A stack is 64, and a double chest of them comes to 3,456.
Is Sculk Sensor renewable?
Yes. Sculk Sensor can be obtained again and again in one world, so building with it does not exhaust the supply.
How long does Sculk Sensor take to break?
0.25 seconds with a netherite-tier tool of the right class, or 2.3 seconds bare-handed.
