EO Mini Pro 3 vs Simpson & Partners Home 7

The £126 between compact and crafted

These two chargers occupy different corners of the market, and the £126 gap between them is doing different work than a simple spec upgrade. The EO Mini Pro 3 at £523 is the smallest smart charger you can buy in the UK — an A5-sized box that disappears on a narrow garage wall. The Simpson & Partners Home 7 at £649 is a UK-manufactured, anodised aluminium unit designed to sit on a front wall and not apologise for itself. One solves a space problem. The other solves an aesthetic one.

• EO Mini Pro 3 — the charger for tight walls, side returns, and garages where every centimetre counts. £523, 7.2kW, 3-year warranty.
• Simpson & Partners Home 7 — the charger for visible installations where build quality and longevity matter more than footprint. £649, 7kW (or 22kW three-phase), 10-year enclosure warranty.

What the EO Mini Pro 3 does that nothing else can

Size. That is the entire argument. At 215 × 140 × 100 mm, the EO is roughly half the face area of the Simpson & Partners and a fraction of its 5.5 kg weight. If you have a recessed cupboard, a narrow wall between a door frame and a gas meter, or a garage pillar that won't accommodate a standard unit, the EO is often the only charger that fits. No other mainstream smart charger comes close to these dimensions — the Wallbox Pulsar Max, sometimes called compact, is still larger.

The trade-offs are proportional. Power tops out at 7.2kW rather than 7.4kW — a difference of minutes per full charge, not hours, but a difference nonetheless. The warranty is three years. EO is in the middle of migrating its app ecosystem to ev.energy, which means the software experience you read about in older reviews is not the one you will live with. And at £523, the EO is not cheap for what it does: the Tesla Wall Connector costs £475, charges at 7.4kW, and has a longer cable, though it lacks OZEV approval.

One genuine structural advantage: if you are a British Gas customer on the EV Power+ tariff, the Hive-branded version of the EO credits back 25% of charging costs. That is a recurring discount no other charger replicates.

Why the Simpson & Partners costs £126 more — and whether it earns it

The Simpson & Partners is not a tech charger. It is a materials charger. The enclosure is anodised aluminium, UK-manufactured, available in finishes including Accoya wood and Cotswolds Green. If the charger is going on the front of a Victorian terrace or a stone-clad cottage, the Simpson & Partners looks like it belongs there. The Andersen A3 does this too — but at £900, which is £251 more. Buyers weighing design against price will find the Simpson & Partners comparison with the Andersen more useful; there is a dedicated page for that.

The 10-year enclosure warranty is the longest on the UK market. A caveat worth reading carefully: the internal electronics carry a standard three-year warranty, the same as the EO. So the decade of cover protects against corrosion, fading, and physical degradation — meaningful for an outdoor unit in British weather, less so for a board failure at year five.

The Simpson & Partners also offers a 22kW three-phase option, which the EO does not. Fewer than 5% of UK homes have three-phase supply, but if yours does — or if you are building new and specifying one — the upgrade path exists without changing hardware.

The app is functional rather than polished. It handles Octopus Go and EDF GoElectric scheduling on a timer, and Intelligent Octopus Go schedules the charger directly. It will not chase half-hourly rates on Octopus Agile the way the Ohme Home Pro does. If smart tariff optimisation is the priority, neither of these chargers is the right answer — the Ohme is.

The installer question

The Simpson & Partners has a smaller UK installer network than the household names. This matters. A charger is only as good as the person who wires it in, and fewer fitters familiar with a unit can mean longer lead times or wider travel charges. Before committing to the Simpson & Partners, confirm there is a local installer comfortable with it. The EO, sold through its own installer network, has broader coverage — though it is still not as ubiquitous as Ohme or myenergi.

Which to buy

Buy the EO Mini Pro 3 if:

• Physical space is the constraint — no other smart charger fits where this one does
• You are a British Gas EV Power+ customer and want the 25% Hive cashback
• You want the lower upfront cost and do not need three-phase or a premium finish

Buy the Simpson & Partners Home 7 if:

• The charger will be visible on a front wall and appearance matters
• A 10-year enclosure warranty gives you peace of mind for an outdoor install
• You have or plan to install a three-phase supply

For most buyers who do not have a space constraint, the Simpson & Partners is the more considered purchase — better built, longer-warranted where weather does its damage, and handsome enough to justify its place on a front elevation. The EO earns its keep only when the wall demands it.