Andersen A3 vs Indra Smart PRO

The £505 question

The Andersen A3 costs £900. The Indra Smart PRO costs £395. Both push 7.4kW through a Type 2 tethered cable to the same car. The gap — £505 — is not a rounding error. It is the price of a decent weekend away, or roughly the cost of a standard installation. What it buys you is worth understanding clearly, because the answer is not about charging.

• Andersen A3 — anodised aluminium, hidden cable, 247 finishes, seven-year warranty. A piece of exterior design that happens to charge a car.
• Indra Smart PRO — surge protection device and solar CT clamp included, 6-metre cable, three-year warranty. A sensible charger that keeps total install cost low.

What £505 does and does not buy

It does not buy faster charging. Both chargers are single-phase 7.4kW — the same rate as the Tesla Wall Connector, the Ohme Home Pro, and most of the market. Neither offers a three-phase option. On any off-peak tariff — Octopus Go at 8.5p/kWh, EDF GoElectric at 6.99p/kWh — the electricity bill is identical.

It does not buy meaningfully better software. The Andersen app handles scheduling and supports Intelligent Octopus Go and OVO Charge Anytime. The Indra app does the same, and adds dynamic load balancing and RFID card tracking. Neither app is as polished as Ohme's, but both get the job done.

What £505 buys is the body. The A3's anodised aluminium front, its hidden 5.5-metre cable that retracts into the unit, and a choice of 247 colour and finish combinations — wood inlays, bespoke colour-match, the lot. It also buys four extra years of warranty: seven versus three. If the charger sits beside your front door, visible to every neighbour and passer-by, the Andersen is a different category of object to the Indra. If it sits in a garage or on a side wall behind the bins, the aluminium is wasted on the dark.

The Indra's quiet advantage at the meter board

The Indra Smart PRO ships with a surge protection device in the box. On a typical install, an SPD adds £100–£150 to the electrician's bill. The Indra also includes a CT clamp for solar diversion — usually another £50–£100 as an add-on with other chargers. Factor those in, and the effective cost of the Indra unit drops towards £150–£250. Against the Andersen's £900, the real-world gap is closer to £650–£750.

The Indra's 6-metre cable is also half a metre longer than the Andersen's 5.5-metre hidden cable. That extra reach matters more than it sounds — the A3's hidden-cable design means the unit must mount close to where the car parks, with no slack to play with. If your charging socket is on the offside and the wall is a stretch, the Andersen's elegant cable management becomes a constraint.

Grant-eligible buyers tip the balance further

Both chargers are OZEV-approved. Eligible renters and flat owners can claim the £500 grant. For the Indra at £395, that grant covers the unit outright and contributes to install costs too. For the Andersen at £900, the grant knocks the unit to £400 — still more than the Indra's full price. The arithmetic favours the cheaper charger even more when the government is paying.

The verdict

Buy the Andersen A3 if:

• The charger will be visible from the street or the front of the house, and you care how it looks
• A seven-year warranty matters to you — it is the longest available on any UK home charger
• You have already decided the budget is secondary to the finish

Buy the Indra Smart PRO if:

• You want the lowest total cost on the wall, including install — the included SPD and CT clamp make the Indra hard to beat on effective price
• A 6-metre cable suits your parking layout better than 5.5 metres with no slack
• You would rather spend the £505 difference on electricity, or on nothing at all

For most buyers, the Indra Smart PRO is the right call. It does the same electrical job, includes parts that other chargers charge extra for, and leaves a substantial sum in your account. The Andersen A3 is a fine product — built with evident care, backed by the market's longest warranty — but it is a design purchase, not a charging one. If you are weighing the Andersen against something with stronger software rather than a lower price, the Ohme Home Pro comparison is the better page for you.