Ever since the recent Minecraft Live event that revealed the upcoming Caves and Cliffs update for the game, we've learned quite a lot about what to expect from Minecraft patch 1.17. One of the update's biggest additions is set to be the introduction of a block that makes wireless redstone a reality: the sound detecting Skulk Sensor. As it turns out, this new mechanism will also ensure that your redstone contraptions don't break or trigger due to the noise of rain.
The demonstration of the Skulk Sensor's abilities showed its capacity for creating wireless redstone signals, which has the potential to be a total game changer for a lot of players — it opens up avenues and possibilities that few dared to dream were possible. However, as the news sank in and people had time to give the new block a little more thought, the question of whether the sensor would respond to the sound of rain became an important one to answer.
Modder turned Mojang developer Kingbdogz answered that question by showing us that the Skulk Sensor wouldn't light a redstone lamp during a rainstorm. Mojang apparently didn't want redstone builds to break simply because of environmental factors.
Because the Skulk Sensor is a directional sensor, it wouldn't make sense for it to detect sounds from multiple directions. As Kingbdogz put it, "there are so many rain noises around it all at once that it can't 'distinguish' a particular vibration. It becomes the same sort of motion everywhere, giving it nothing to pinpoint."
In a similar vein, the Skulk Sensors won't react to each other or The Warden, because they have become accustomed to one another's sounds. The Caves and Cliffs update isn't expected to be released until the summer of 2021, however, so there is still time for things to change.
As it stands, this mechanic would make it possible to "blind" Skulk Sensors — in the wild or in redstone builds — by creating noise from multiple directions in a rapid-fire manner. Until snapshots start coming out, though, we are going to have to be content with mere speculation on what the ramifications of this mechanic could be.