Guide · Outdoor living

How to bring sunlight to a shaded terrace or garden

Your terrace gets sun - just not when you want to sit on it. By mid-afternoon the neighbour's wall or a row of trees has swallowed it. A heliostat puts that sun back: it reflects real sunlight onto your favourite seat and keeps it there as the sun moves on.

Why outdoor spots lose the sun

Terraces, courtyards and garden seats are boxed in by buildings, fences, pergolas and trees. As the sun drops toward the horizon, the shadow line creeps across exactly the spot you'd like to use after work. North-facing and east-facing gardens lose useful sun the earliest.

How a heliostat reclaims a shaded seat

A heliostat is mounted where the sun does still reach - a sunny corner of the garden, a wall, a mast or a ground anchor. From there it reflects a steady patch of sunlight back onto the shaded area you actually use, and it re-aims itself automatically as the afternoon goes on. You set the target once; it does the tracking.

Good outdoor uses

• An afternoon sun-trap on a terrace seat the building line has shaded.
• A warm garden bench or reading corner that the hedge keeps in shadow.
• Light-hungry plants in a shaded bed or on a balcony wall.
• A brighter outdoor dining spot in the golden hour, scheduled for the time you eat.

Built for outdoors

Because it lives outside year-round, a serious home heliostat has to be weatherproof. The ohoya Heliostat is built to an IP65 sealing rating, rated for −20 °C to +60 °C, and parks itself automatically in strong wind. It runs on its own battery with a solar top-up option, and is controlled locally from an app - no cloud account required. The mirror is slightly convex, so there is no focal point - by design. Glare protection is built in.