Daylight Detector

"We're big fans of the daylight sensor, seeing as it can sense when night falls and automatically close your doors, stopping mobs from getting in. Very handy if you're crafting in your basement and lose track of time!"

- Tom Stone

A daylight detector is a block that outputs a redstone signal based on sunlight (or lack thereof).

Obtaining
Daylight detectors can be broken fairly easily by hand, but can be broken faster by using an axe. Inverted daylight detectors cannot be collected directly; they drop a regular daylight detector. In Bedrock Edition the inverted sensor may be obtained via inventory editing.

Redstone component


A daylight detector can be used to produce redstone power in proportion to the daylight or night time.

A daylight detector is 0.375 blocks high (3/8ths of a block). Daylight detectors can be moved by pistons. Water and lava flows around daylight detectors without affecting them.


 * Placement


 * To place a daylight detector, use the "Use Item/Place Block" control.


 * A daylight detector can be "inverted", which reverses the power levels produced by the daylight detector. To invert a daylight detector, aim at the placed daylight detector and use the "Use Item/Place Block" control.


 * Activation


 * A daylight detector activates when exposed to sufficient daylight (daylight detector mode) or when its sky light level drops to 0 (inverted daylight detector mode).


 * An inverted daylight detector activates when exposure to daylight is low enough (inverted daylight detector mode).


 * Sources of block light (torches, glowstone, etc.) cannot activate a daylight detector.


 * Behavior


 * An active daylight detector:
 * powers adjacent redstone dust, including below it, and redstone comparators facing away from the daylight detector, to a power level that depends on the time of day, the weather, and the daylight detector's sky light level (see tables below)
 * powers adjacent redstone repeaters facing away from the daylight detector to power level 15
 * activates adjacent redstone mechanisms, including above and below, such as pistons, redstone lamps, etc.


 * A daylight detector has no effect on other adjacent blocks (for example, it cannot power a block the way a repeater can).

Daylight Detector
If a daylight detector has an opaque block above it, then it emits a weaker signal, or none at all, as it is directly proportional to the sky light.

The daylight detector power level should be 0 from time 13680 to 22340.

Inverted Daylight Detector
a daylight detector inverts it. However, the output of the inverted detector is not a simple inversion of the daylight detector’s output; it uses a much simpler algorithm that depends only on the level of light from the sky. Specifically, it outputs a signal strength of 15 minus the current light level, meaning that an inverted daylight detector actually outputs a strength of 11 at midnight, if it has line of sight with the sky. The effects of shade are applied before inverting, so shade increases the signal strength when it isn't already full, and prevents it from reaching zero.

The inverted daylight detector cannot be obtained as an item. Mining an inverted daylight detector simply drops a regular daylight detector.

Fuel
Daylight detectors can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 1.5 items per block.

Block data
In Bedrock Edition, a daylight sensor's block data stores its power level:

Block entity
A daylight detector has a block entity associated with it which stores only its entity ID and position (the minimum data for a block entity). Although the daylight detector's block entity stores no additional data, the block entity ensures that the daylight detector is updated every game tick.