Easee One vs Indra Smart PRO

£94, and two different ways to cut an electrician's bill

The Easee One costs £489. The Indra Smart PRO costs £395. Both sit in the affordable half of the UK charger market, and both make a similar promise: the box on the wall includes protection hardware that your electrician would otherwise add to the labour bill. The difference is which protection, and what else comes with it.

• Indra Smart PRO — £395, tethered with a 6-metre cable, surge protection device and solar CT clamp in the box, smart tariff scheduling built in.
• Easee One — £489, untethered, built-in Type B RCD and open-PEN detection, lifetime 4G eSIM, 1.5 kg on the wall.

What the Indra includes that the Easee does not

The Indra ships with a surge protection device — typically a £100–£150 line item on an install quote — and a CT clamp for solar diversion, which would otherwise run another £50–£100. Together, those accessories can knock £150–£250 off the total project cost before anyone picks up a drill. On a house with rooftop solar, that CT clamp alone makes the Indra worth considering against chargers costing twice as much. The myenergi Zappi GLO is the category leader for solar diversion, but it costs £599; the Indra does a simpler version of the same job for £204 less.

The Indra also has direct tariff integration — it can schedule around Octopus Intelligent Go, Octopus Go, OVO Charge Anytime, and EDF GoElectric windows. The Easee's scheduling is manual: you set a time, it charges at that time. If your tariff has a fixed off-peak window — say Go's 00:30–05:30 — that is fine. If you move to a tariff where the supplier manages the session, the Easee cannot participate.

The app gap is worth naming. Indra's software is functional but basic. The Easee app is more polished, with per-session energy breakdowns and cleaner scheduling. Neither is in the same league as the Ohme Home Pro for tariff automation, but day-to-day the Easee is the more pleasant piece of software.

What the Easee does that the Indra cannot

The Easee's party trick is the install itself. At 1.5 kg, it is lighter than most hardback books. Its built-in Type B RCD and open-PEN detection mean the electrician does not need to add those components at the consumer unit — a saving of roughly £100–£200 depending on the board. On a house where the consumer unit is full, or in a garage with a long cable run, that integrated protection can be the difference between a straightforward job and a panel upgrade.

There is also the lifetime 4G eSIM. If your charger sits at the far end of a detached garage where Wi-Fi does not reach, the Easee stays connected without a range extender. The Indra relies on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth only. In a semi with the charger on the front wall, this is irrelevant. In a barn conversion forty metres from the router, it matters.

And the Easee is untethered — a Type 2 socket, no dangling cable. Some people prefer the tidy wall when the car is away; others find plugging in every session a chore. The Indra's 6-metre tethered cable is always ready. Neither approach is wrong, but the preference is strong enough to settle the decision for some buyers on its own.

The grant arithmetic

Both chargers are OZEV-approved, so eligible renters and flat owners can claim the £500 grant. At £395, the Indra's unit price is covered outright by the grant, with the remaining £105 chipping into installation costs. The Easee at £489 is nearly covered too — just £11 short before the grant starts eating into the install bill. For grant-eligible buyers, the out-of-pocket difference between these two shrinks to something close to trivial.

For everyone else — homeowners in houses, who are not eligible — the £94 gap is real money, and the Indra's included SPD and CT clamp widen it further in effective terms. If your quote already includes a surge protection device, the Indra's total cost advantage over the Easee could stretch past £200.

Which to buy

Buy the Indra Smart PRO if:

• You want the lowest total project cost, especially with solar panels already on the roof
• You use or plan to use a smart tariff and want the charger to schedule around it
• You prefer a tethered cable — 6 metres, always ready, no faffing

Buy the Easee One if:

• Your consumer unit is full or awkward, and built-in RCD protection will save a panel upgrade
• Your charger location has no reliable Wi-Fi — the lifetime 4G eSIM solves it
• You want an untethered socket and a clean wall between sessions

For most households on a standard single-phase supply, the Indra is the stronger proposition. It costs less, includes more in the box, and talks to more tariffs. The Easee's case is narrower but genuine — difficult installs and poor Wi-Fi are real problems, and the Easee solves both without accessories or workarounds. If neither of those applies to you, the £94 stays in your pocket. Spend it on electricity.