The main home EV chargers, compared on what actually differs

They nearly all charge at the same speed

Start here, because it saves a lot of wasted comparison. Almost every home charger sold in the UK delivers 7.4kW at 32A on a single phase supply. That is the ceiling of the circuit, not a feature of the unit, so a more expensive charger does not fill your car faster.

What genuinely differs is the cable arrangement, how the unit connects to the internet, whether it can take instructions from your energy tariff, how cleverly it reads surplus solar, and how long the warranty runs. Those four things are where the money goes.

The specification table

Specifications from manufacturer pages, datasheets and published reviews, all checked August 2026. Hardware revisions change: confirm the current revision of any unit before you buy.

Cable format is the decision you live with daily

Tethered means the cable is permanently attached. You walk up and plug in, and there is nothing to fetch or store, but the length is fixed at whatever you chose on the day. The Zappi tethered option runs 6.5m, the Ohme Home Pro ships at 5m with an 8m upgrade, and the Hypervolt Home 3 Pro offers 5m, 7.5m or 10m, which is the longest fitted cable in its class.

Untethered means a socket only, so you supply the cable and store it in the boot. The wall unit is neater, you can change cable length later, and it can serve both Type 1 and Type 2 cars, which the Ohme ePod explicitly does. A decent Type 2 cable runs £100 to £200, so factor that in. The Easee One sits between the two with a lockable Type 2 port that lets you leave a cable in permanently or take it away after each charge. We have gone deeper in tethered or untethered.

Tariff integration separates the smart from the merely connected

Every new charger is legally required to be smart, but smart means schedulable, not tariff aware. The units that save the most are the ones your energy supplier can talk to directly, because the supplier pushes charging slots to the charger rather than relying on you to guess the cheap hours.

Ohme integrates on the charger side with Intelligent Octopus Go: the tariff is set up automatically in the Ohme app, dynamic charging is enabled, and smart charging dispatched outside the published off-peak window is still billed at the off-peak rate. Hypervolt Home 3 Pro carries direct integration with Intelligent Octopus Go, OVO Charge Anytime and EDF GoElectric. Indra Smart PRO integrates natively with Intelligent Octopus Go and OVO Charge Anytime. Andersen home chargers are supported on Intelligent Octopus Go. Pod Point Solo 3S is the outlier: strong warranty, no smart tariff switching integration.

Solar handling is where the Zappi still leads

If you have or are planning solar panels, the charger's ability to chase surplus generation matters more than anything else in the table. The Zappi runs three modes, ECO, ECO+ and FAST, where ECO+ pauses charging when too much power is being imported and resumes only when there is surplus generation, and it ships with a clip-on grid sensor to read it. myenergi states the Zappi supports 100% self-generated charging from solar or wind and works alongside battery storage.

Hypervolt runs an equivalent ladder of Boost, Eco and Super Eco, with the solar CT clamp included in the box, and Ohme markets Solar Boost through its own CT and app. The full mechanics, including the 1.4kW floor that catches people out, are in how solar aware charging works.

What the extra money buys

• Longer warranty. Pod Point Solo 3S covers 5 years including installation, Wallbox Pulsar Max 5 years, Andersen A3 7 years, against 3 years on the Zappi and both Ohme units.
• Independence from your home WiFi. Both Ohme units run a 4G multi-net SIM, so a charger at the far end of a driveway does not need a strong signal from the house.
• Ingress and impact protection. Hypervolt Home 3 Pro is rated IP66 and IK10, the Zappi IP65 and IK10, the Ohme Home Pro IP55 and the ePod IP54.
• Appearance. The Andersen A3 hides the cable and offers over 240 finish options, UK designed and manufactured. That is what the premium is for, and it is a legitimate reason to spend it.
• Format flexibility. The Easee One is the only unit here that genuinely works either tethered or untethered.

What we deliberately have not put in the table

Installed prices. Charger pricing moves constantly and varies enormously by installation team, cable run and consumer unit work, so a single figure per brand would be misleading within weeks. Where a manufacturer publishes its own starting price we will quote it: the Zappi starts from £779 including VAT, the Ohme Home Pro from £999 including standard installation and the Ohme ePod from £949 including standard installation, all checked August 2026.

For everything else, work from the market range rather than a brand headline. A typical 7kW smart charger installation lands at £800 to £1,200, with London and the South East commonly £900 to £1,500, and complex jobs involving long cable runs, groundworks or consumer unit upgrades reaching £1,200 to £1,500 or more. The breakdown is in what an installation actually involves.

The short version

1. Solar on the roof or coming soon: the Zappi is the benchmark for surplus tracking, with Hypervolt close behind.
2. No solar, strong off-peak tariff: Ohme for charger-side tariff integration, Hypervolt if you also want build quality and cable length.
3. Want the longest cover and the simplest life: Pod Point Solo 3S, accepting that it does not do tariff switching.
4. Want it to disappear into the wall: Andersen A3, and expect to pay for the finish.
5. Cannot decide between tethered and untethered: Easee One does both.

Charger choice also interacts with battery storage, because a battery and a car compete for the same surplus. County pages across the site carry local calculators that model the whole picture, and you can reach yours from the coverage map.

Clearline is independent and does not sell or install chargers. Manufacturers are named here for factual comparison only, and no partnership or endorsement is implied. Installations are carried out by an MCS-certified installation team for your area.