How to get the Shrine Sensor in Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK)

 The Shrine Sensor returns in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, letting players easily search for nearby shrines. This is one of the best tools you can unlock for your Purah Pad if you want to complete all 152 shrines in the game. In other words, many players will want to find this as soon as possible.

Unlocking the Shrine Sensor isn’t necessarily difficult, but you’ll need to complete many prerequisites before you can access it, including starting the Hateno Village Research Lab quest. Here’s the rundown.

Unlock the Camera and Autobuild ability

Starting from the beginning, head to Lookout Landing and grab the “Camera Work in the Depths” quest from Josha and Robbie. This will, naturally, lead you into the Depths. Complete this quest and you’ll unlock the camera power for the Purah Pad and the Compendium.

Once you have this, you’ll need to find the next mission in this questline: “A Mystery in the Depths.” To access this quest, finish one of the four Regional Phenomena dungeons. Afterwards, return to Josha and she will give you this next quest, which involves following some statues.

The goal here is to find the Autobuild ability, which is its own full-on side adventure. Click here to check out our guide for unlocking this ability. Afterwards, return to Robbie in Lookout Landing. At this point, you can help him reassemble his hot air balloon, which he will use to fly to Hateno Village.

Meet him at the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab and you’ll finally work towards unlocking the Shrine Sensor.

Find the Mayahisik Shrine and unlock the Shrine Sensor in Tears of the Kingdom

When you meet with Robbie at the lab, he’ll start you on the Hateno Village Research Lab quest by giving you the Shrine Sensor and asking you to test it out by finding the nearby shrine. You’re looking for the Mayahisik Shrine, which is directly underneath you. Leave the lab and jump down to the ground floor well below.

Here, you’ll see a wall with cracks in it, which you can break with any heavy blunt weapon. Follow the linear path into this cave to uncover the Mayahisik Shrine. Complete the shrine and then head back to Robbie.

Tell Robbie about your work and he will give you the permanent Shrine Sensor upgrade for the Purah Pad. If you wish, you can upgrade it to the Sensor+ to locate anything in the Compendium with ease.

How to use the Shrine Sensor in TotK

The Shrine Sensor is enabled by default. However, if you want to turn it off or toggle it back on, you need to open the map screen and press Y. The Shrine Sensor alerts you whenever you’re near an undiscovered shrine. It initially lets out a sound to alert you, and then the icon in the bottom-right of the screen (near your map) will glow when you’re moving in the direction of the sensor.

However, as you’ll find out in the Hateno Village Research Lab quest, it points you toward the shrine and not the path you need to take to get to it. If it’s directly above or below you, it’s up to you to find the path to it.