Indra Smart PRO vs Simpson & Partners Home 7

The £254 question — and what each side of it buys

The Indra Smart PRO costs £395. The Simpson & Partners Home 7 costs £649. That £254 gap is wide enough to matter and narrow enough to be worth interrogating, because these two British-made chargers are aimed at quite different buyers despite sitting in the same broad market.

• Indra Smart PRO — the cost engineer's pick. £395, surge protection included, solar CT clamp in the box. Lowest effective installed cost in the catalogue for a fully smart charger.
• Simpson & Partners Home 7 — the front-of-house pick. Anodised aluminium, Accoya wood and Cotswolds Green finishes, a 10-year enclosure warranty, and three-phase 22kW if you have the supply.

Why the Indra's real price is lower than £395

The headline figure undersells the Indra's value proposition. The unit ships with a surge protection device — a component most installers otherwise add to the consumer unit at a cost of £100–£150 in parts and labour. It also includes a CT clamp for solar diversion, which competitors like the Ohme Home Pro or Hypervolt Home 3 Pro either charge extra for or omit entirely. Factor both in and the effective cost of the Indra drops to somewhere around £150–£250 before you touch the install itself.

The Simpson & Partners Home 7 does not include an SPD. Its install cost sits in the same £400–£600 band, but the electrician's bill will likely land higher once surge protection is added on top.

For grant-eligible buyers — renters and flat owners — the £500 OZEV grant covers the Indra's £395 unit price outright and chips into the install costs too. The Simpson & Partners Home 7 at £649 still leaves £149 to pay after the grant, plus the full install.

The Simpson & Partners case: finish and longevity

Where the extra £254 goes is visible from the pavement. The Simpson & Partners Home 7 is built from anodised aluminium with optional premium finishes — materials chosen to age gracefully on a period property or a rendered front wall. If your charger is the first thing visitors see, that matters. The Andersen A3 is the usual recommendation for design-conscious buyers, but it costs £900. The Simpson & Partners delivers a similar ethos for £251 less — a point explored in more detail in the Andersen A3 vs Simpson & Partners Home 7 comparison.

Then there is the warranty. Ten years on the enclosure is the longest on the UK market. A word of caution: the internal electronics carry just three years of cover, the same as the Indra. The shell will outlast several rounds of electronics if it needs to, but the bits that do the charging are covered identically.

The other structural advantage is three-phase. The Simpson & Partners Home 7 supports 22kW on a three-phase supply — the Indra is single-phase only, capped at 7.4kW. Fewer than 5% of UK homes have three-phase, but if yours does, the Simpson & Partners belongs on a short list alongside the Wallbox Pulsar Max and myenergi Zappi GLO.

Smart tariff support — close enough to call level

Both chargers handle scheduled charging and support smart tariffs, though neither app matches the polish of the Ohme Home Pro or the Tesla Wall Connector. The Indra integrates with Octopus Intelligent Go, Octopus Go, OVO Charge Anytime, and EDF GoElectric. The Simpson & Partners supports Intelligent Go scheduling directly and runs Go and GoElectric on a timer.

For most tariff setups the difference is negligible. If half-hourly optimisation on Octopus Agile is the priority, neither charger is the right tool — the Ohme Home Pro at £539 handles that natively.

Both brands have smaller installer networks than the household names. Confirm a local fitter is comfortable with whichever you choose before ordering.

The verdict

Buy the Indra Smart PRO if:

• You want the lowest total installed cost for a fully smart, solar-ready charger
• Your home is single-phase and you have no plans to change that
• The included SPD and CT clamp saving £150–£250 on install appeals more than a premium finish

Buy the Simpson & Partners Home 7 if:

• Your charger sits on a front elevation and appearance matters
• You have — or plan to install — a three-phase supply
• A 10-year enclosure warranty gives you peace of mind, even knowing the electronics warranty is three years

For the majority of single-phase UK homes where the charger lives on a side wall or in a garage, the Indra Smart PRO is the better buy. It does the same job for £254 less — and once the included SPD is accounted for, the gap in total project cost is wider still. The Simpson & Partners Home 7 earns its premium only when the house demands something that looks the part for a decade. That is a legitimate reason to spend more. It is just not most people's reason.