Ohme Home Pro vs GivEnergy EV Charger: Smart Tariffs vs Battery Storage

The Tariff Optimizer vs the Battery Specialist

These two chargers sit at a similar price point and both promise to slash your EV running costs — but they take fundamentally different routes to get there. The Ohme Home Pro is built around deep integration with smart energy tariffs, automatically scheduling your charging sessions to hit the cheapest half-hour slots on tariffs like Octopus Intelligent Go. The GivEnergy EV Charger, meanwhile, is designed to work hand-in-glove with home battery storage, letting you charge your Tesla from energy you banked earlier in the day — whether that came from solar panels or a cheap overnight import.

If you're choosing between these two, the decision almost certainly comes down to one question: do you have (or plan to get) a home battery system, or are you looking to maximise savings through a smart energy tariff? Let's break it down properly.

In a nutshell:

• Ohme Home Pro (£535): The UK's smartest tariff-integrated charger, officially recommended by Octopus Energy, with automated off-peak charging that can cut costs to as little as 7p/kWh.
• GivEnergy EV Charger (£478): A budget-friendly charger purpose-built for battery storage owners, capable of charging your EV from stored energy rather than just live solar.

Spec Comparison

Smart Tariff Integration

This is where the Ohme Home Pro genuinely excels — and where the gap between these two chargers is widest. The Ohme connects directly via API to tariffs like Octopus Intelligent Go (~7p/kWh off-peak), Octopus Go (7.5p/kWh between 00:30 and 04:30), and Octopus Agile (variable 30-minute pricing slots). It also works with OVO Smart Charge and other compatible tariffs. You tell the app when you need the car ready and how much charge you need, and it does the rest — shuffling your sessions into the cheapest windows automatically electriccarguide.co.uk.

The practical savings are significant. On Intelligent Go at roughly 7p/kWh, charging a Tesla Model 3 with a 60kWh battery costs around £4.20 from empty to full — enough for approximately 210 miles of range. Over an average UK driving year of 7,400 miles, that works out at roughly £88 annually. Compare that to a standard variable tariff at, say, 24p/kWh, and you'd be paying closer to £300 per year.

The GivEnergy charger, by contrast, has limited smart tariff integration. It offers scheduled charging — so you can manually set it to start at midnight, for instance — but it lacks the deep, dynamic tariff API connections that make the Ohme so effective. If you don't have a home battery and you're relying purely on a smart tariff to cut costs, the Ohme is the clear winner here warmzilla.co.uk.

Solar and Battery Storage

Here the tables turn decisively. Both chargers offer solar divert mode, which routes surplus solar generation directly into your EV rather than exporting it to the grid. But the GivEnergy charger goes a crucial step further: it supports battery-to-EV charging. This means your home battery can store cheap overnight electricity or daytime solar, then release that stored energy into your car whenever you plug in — even after the sun has gone down.

This is a genuine game-changer if you already own a GivEnergy battery (or any compatible home battery system). Imagine your battery fills up from solar during the day while you're at work. You arrive home at 6pm, plug in, and your EV charges from stored solar energy at effectively zero marginal cost. The GivEnergy monitoring portal ties the whole ecosystem together, giving you a single dashboard for solar generation, battery state of charge, home consumption, and EV charging.

The Ohme Home Pro's solar diverting is competent — it can use surplus solar to charge your EV — but it doesn't integrate with home battery systems in the same way. If you've invested thousands in a battery storage setup, the GivEnergy charger unlocks value that the Ohme simply can't match evenergyhub.com.

App, Connectivity, and Daily Experience

The Ohme app is widely regarded as one of the best in the UK EV charging market mcnallyev.uk. It provides detailed cost tracking per session, real-time charging status, energy consumption history, and full schedule control. The built-in colour display on the charger itself is a nice touch too — you can glance at it while walking past and see exactly what's happening without reaching for your phone.

Crucially, the Ohme Home Pro includes 4G connectivity with a three-year SIM, so it works reliably even if your home Wi-Fi doesn't reach the driveway. This is a genuinely practical advantage — Wi-Fi dropout is one of the most common complaints across all smart charger brands, and the Ohme sidesteps the problem entirely.

The GivEnergy charger relies on Wi-Fi only and uses the GivEnergy monitoring portal rather than a dedicated charger app. Multiple reviews note that the app experience is more basic compared to Ohme — functional for scheduling and monitoring, but lacking the polish and granular tariff intelligence. That said, if you're already managing a GivEnergy battery through the portal, having your EV charger in the same ecosystem is genuinely convenient. The RFID card access is a useful security feature, particularly if your charger is accessible from the street.

Power and Charging Speed

The difference here is marginal but worth noting. The Ohme Home Pro delivers 7.4kW, while the GivEnergy runs at 7kW. In real-world terms, the Ohme will charge a 60kWh Tesla Model 3 from empty in roughly 8.1 hours versus about 8.6 hours on the GivEnergy. Both are comfortably overnight charges, so this is unlikely to be a deciding factor for most people. Neither charger offers a three-phase option, so both are capped at single-phase speeds — perfectly normal for the vast majority of UK homes tinyeco.com.

The Ohme also comes pre-wired for dynamic load balancing, which automatically adjusts charging power to prevent your home's supply from being overloaded. This is particularly useful if you run high-draw appliances like an electric oven or heat pump alongside your charger.

Price and Value

The GivEnergy is £57 cheaper at the unit level, but installation costs overlap significantly, so the total outlay is broadly similar. The real value question isn't about the upfront cost — it's about what each charger saves you over time. If you're on Octopus Intelligent Go, the Ohme's automated tariff optimisation could save you £150–£200 per year compared to charging on a standard tariff. If you have a home battery and solar panels, the GivEnergy's battery-to-EV feature could reduce your charging costs to near zero during sunny months.

Who Should Buy Which?

Buy the Ohme Home Pro if:

• You're on (or switching to) a smart tariff like Octopus Intelligent Go, Octopus Agile, or OVO Smart Charge
• You want fully automated off-peak charging without manual scheduling
• Your Wi-Fi doesn't reliably reach your charger location (built-in 4G solves this)
• You value a polished app with detailed cost-per-session tracking
• You want an on-unit colour display for at-a-glance status

Buy the GivEnergy EV Charger if:

• You have a home battery storage system (GivEnergy or otherwise)
• You want to charge your EV from stored solar energy, not just live surplus
• You're already in the GivEnergy ecosystem and want one monitoring portal for everything
• You want RFID card security for a street-facing installation
• You're after the lowest upfront cost for a solar-compatible charger

Our recommendation: For the majority of UK Tesla owners without home battery storage, the Ohme Home Pro is the stronger choice. Its smart tariff integration is best-in-class, the 4G connectivity removes Wi-Fi headaches, and the potential savings on Octopus Intelligent Go alone will recoup the modest price premium within a few months. However, if you've already invested in a home battery system — or you're planning to — the GivEnergy EV Charger unlocks a capability that no amount of tariff cleverness can replicate: charging your car from energy you've already stored for free. For that specific setup, it's genuinely brilliant.

Read our full Ohme Home Pro review or GivEnergy EV Charger review.

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