How to Make Lights That Turn on at Night in Minecraft

Using a Daylight Sensor

Mine nether quartz. The daylight sensor is the easiest way to make a "night light," but you'll need a Nether portal to find the ingredients. Nether quartz ore isn't hard to find once you're in the Nether, but be prepared for difficult combats. Each sensor requires three nether quartz. If you're not at this stage of the game yet, try the DIY sensor below.

Craft the daylight sensor. Create a daylight sensor with the following ingredients: Three glass in the top row Three nether quartz in the middle row Three wood slabs (not planks) on the bottom row

Deposit the sensor. Place the sensor anywhere you like. It is a half-height block, with a beige upper surface. By default, this sensor will provide power when sunlight hits it. The brighter the sunlight, the stronger the signal.

Transform it to detect night instead. There are two ways to change this sensor's behavior: Surround it with opaque blocks to make it a night sensor. This will send a power signal only at night, reaching peak strength at midnight (time 17780–18240). Or right-click it to make it an inverted sensor (blue surface). This sends out a stronger signal in dark conditions. Unlike the night sensor, this can turn on in the daytime during rainy or stormy weather.

Connect it to a redstone lamp. Place a line of redstone from the sensor to a redstone lamp. Depending on which sensor you used, the lamp will either turn on at night, or anytime the sensor is dark. To make a redstone lamp, surround a glowstone block with four redstone dust. Night sensors (but not inverted sensors) will blink on and off if the lamp they are connected to is exposed to the outside sky or window. Place the lamp in a windowless room to prevent this, or right-click the sensor to invert it.

Adjust the timing. These sensors don't just have two states. They will gradually increase and decrease in power over the course of each day/night cycle. To make your lamp turn on earlier in the dusk, shorten the redstone path or insert some redstone repeaters to boost the signal. To make the lamp stay off until later at night, lengthen the redstone path. To make a redstone repeater, place redstone dust in the center with a redstone torch on either side, all above three stone blocks. Redstone repeaters have a front and a back. Make sure to place it so the signal goes in the right direction.

Example Daylight Sensor Designs

Create power lines from a single sensor. You can power any number of redstone lamps from a single daylight sensor. Right-click to invert the sensor, then place a line of redstone dust extending from any side of it. Place short branches of redstone off of this line, with a redstone lamp at the end of each branch. When you reach the limit of the sensor's range (when the redstone is no longer glowing), place a redstone repeater to keep the power line going. Keep in mind the power signal will decrease as it brightens. If you have a long line, the lamps farthest away from the sensor will go out first as dawn approaches.

Build street lamps. Place three or four fence poles on top of each other to make one tall one, and top it with a redstone lamp. Place redstone dust on top of this lamp, then a daylight sensor on top of the redstone. Surround the redstone with more redstone lamps for extra light, then right-click the sensor to invert it.

Make lamps without redstone dust. You can place a redstone lamp directly next to a night sensor to power it directly, with no need for redstone "wires." Bury the sensor two blocks deep in the floor, wall, or ceiling to make your lamps part of the room itself.