Home charge points (purchase/problems/questions) (See mod note post#1)

Depends on what you want. Cheap and cheerful or bells and whistles and everything in between.

They will all charge the car.

Things to consider

• You've mentioned you want app integration.... that puts you in the "smart charger" category which straight away bumps the price.
• Do you care about the look of it? You can get fancy looking ones for massive money (Andersen A2, for instance) or get simple looking like EO Mini.
• Do you want tethered or untethered. People sometimes pick untethered to make it more discreet but then you have to pull the cable in/out of your car. If you only need to charge once or twice a week that might be fine with you. Personal choice thing.
• Do you have a budget or are you willing to pay for everything you want?

The VW charge point does integration with the ID app so you have one app for both the car and the charge point. You need to buy the "connect" version if you want that capability.

The VW charge point is not the most advanced yet, but there is a firmware update supposed to come in the next few months and they are talking about adding lots of new features, but its VW so dont hold your breath.

The VW charge point has load sensing (and some other things) built-in. If you have other high powered devices in the house like a heat pump or electric shower it means you wont have to buy a priority switch(€150-€200), which you would have to buy with some other cheaper charge points, so thats worth keeping in mind.

Most smart charge points have that load sensing also and app integration, e.g. Hypervolt and Zappi.

great analysis/advice...

Cheers,

So you can't fit the charger till you have the car?

Thanks,

Mick

Hi all, my in laws have an eo mini procured from EI installed via kn and it’s not working at the moment. Who do they contact to get it fixed ?

Not a stupid question at all, it's been a subject of much discussion. They are allowed to run it from the meter box or the consumer unit, with preference given to the consumer unit. For many homes the meter box is the only viable solution.

Some installers however will not run the cable from the meter box, KN in particular are extremely conservative. I actually kind of hate KN, I walk around my neighbourhood and I see not only a bunch it botched charger installations but also botched fibre internet installs. Check with your installer before booking and installation.

3-phase?

Unless you have a 3-phase supply a 3-phase charger won't work for you...

Well the bit that might confuse people is that some chargers are rated to work with either single phase or 3 phase power.

Hi folks,

Was looking at ordering the vw charger last night. It mentions not to order until seai letter comes. I have the email from seai stating my grant gas been approved and the dates etc. Do I need to wait for a letter to o arrive in the post before ordering any equipment?

The other thing is the vw checkout page says the charger doesn't include any load balancing which I might need as we have an electric shower?

Do some chargers like the zappi come with the load balancing?

I quite like the idea of the vw charger and app integration etc

Thanks,

Mick

It doesn’t happen…..

Is it pointless to get a charger without load balancing? Local Nissan dealer has a 'free' charger without load balancing. Everything else is around 600€ after the grant. I have 1 electric shower but tbh we don't need to use it as we have pressurised system too that we mainly use.

You getting fed up walking up to Lidl 😊😊? Can't say it's something I ever thought of (someone plugging into my CP) maybe I have nicer neighbours 🤔, anyway as others have suggested a lock through the isolation switch or isolate at the cu.

Do you need to be a Tesla owner?