Andersen A3 vs Andersen Quartz: Is the hidden cable worth £300?

Same badge, £300 apart

Both chargers say Andersen on the front. Both carry a seven-year warranty — the longest of any home charger sold in the UK. Both connect to the same app, support the same tariff integrations, and deliver roughly the same 7 kW to a single-phase home. The Andersen A3 costs £995. The Andersen Quartz costs £695. That £300 gap is almost entirely about what you see, not what you get.

• Andersen A3 — 247 finishes, hidden retractable cable, anodised aluminium face. The charger as exterior design statement.
• Andersen Quartz — eleven finishes, IP65, optional 22 kW three-phase, optional 8.5-metre cable. The charger as sensible appliance with good looks.

What £300 actually buys

The A3's party trick is its cable drum. When you unplug the car, the 5.5-metre tethered cable retracts into the body of the unit. No cable loop on a hook, no coil on the ground. No other home charger on the UK market does this. Paired with 247 finish combinations — anodised aluminium, wood inlays, bespoke colour-matching — the A3 is designed to sit on a front wall and look like it belongs there.

The Quartz does not hide its cable. It hangs on a hook or, if you chose the socketed version, lives in the boot. For homes where the charger faces the street, the difference is visible every day. For homes where it sits in a garage or down a side return, the difference is invisible — and the £300 is pure sentiment.

Worth noting: the Quartz is the tougher unit. IP65 versus the A3's IP54. On an exposed, rain-lashed wall in mid-Wales, the cheaper charger is the more weatherproof one. It is also lighter (3.4–5.2 kg installed versus roughly 7.5 kg) and more compact at 286 × 172 × 110 mm.

The Quartz's quiet advantages

Strip away aesthetics and the Quartz has two features the A3 cannot match. First, a three-phase option — add £195 and the Quartz delivers 22 kW on a three-phase supply. The A3 is single-phase only. Three-phase homes are a small minority, but if yours is one of them, the decision is already made.

Second, cable length. The A3's hidden drum holds 5.5 metres and nothing more — the mechanism sets the limit. The Quartz offers an 8.5-metre tethered cable for an extra £99. If the charger must sit far from the parking spot, the Quartz reaches; the A3 does not.

Both chargers now integrate with Intelligent Octopus Go and OVO Charge Anytime. Neither is a smart-tariff leader in the way the Ohme Home Pro is — half-hourly optimisation on Octopus Agile still wants an Ohme — but for fixed-window off-peak tariffs like Octopus Go, both Andersens schedule competently. The Quartz also includes a CT clamp for solar diversion out of the box, a feature the A3 shares but that deserves mention given the price difference. If solar integration is the priority, the myenergi Zappi GLO at £750 remains the specialist choice.

The OZEV question

The A3 is OZEV-approved. The Quartz, as of now, is not confirmed on the eligible-chargepoint list. For renters and flat owners who qualify for the £500 grant, this matters. The grant applied to the A3 brings its effective unit cost to £495 — suddenly close to the Quartz's £695 with no grant at all. If you are grant-eligible, check the current OZEV list before committing; the arithmetic shifts considerably.

Which to buy

Buy the Andersen A3 if:

• The charger will sit on a front-facing wall visible from the street, and you care about kerb appeal
• You want the hidden cable — no other charger offers it, and for some homes it is the entire point
• You are OZEV-eligible and the grant narrows the effective gap to under £200

Buy the Andersen Quartz if:

• You want the Andersen warranty and build quality without the Andersen flagship price
• You need a longer cable (8.5 m option) or three-phase charging (22 kW option)
• The charger lives in a garage, on a side wall, or anywhere the hidden cable would go unappreciated

For most buyers, the Quartz is the right Andersen. It is tougher, more flexible, and £300 less — while sharing the same app, the same seven-year warranty, and the same brand credibility. The A3 exists for the subset of owners whose driveway is the first thing visitors see, and who would rather look at anodised aluminium and a clean wall than a cable on a hook. That is a real preference, not a frivolous one. But it is a £300 preference, and the Quartz does everything else just as well.

If neither Andersen's price sits comfortably, the Tesla Wall Connector at £478 or the Ohme Home Pro at £535 will charge identically for considerably less — though neither will look as good doing it. Buyers weighing the A3 against chargers from other brands will find more detail in the Tesla vs A3 comparison.