Easee One vs Indra Smart LUX: the £210 question

The £210 question

The Easee One is £405 — the cheapest mainstream charger on the UK market. The Indra Smart LUX is £615, which is £210 more. That gap buys you a tethered cable, a slimmer and tougher body, and an app that talks to more than a thousand UK tariffs. Whether any of that is worth the outlay depends on two things: your tariff, and whether you prefer to grab the cable off a wall or out of a boot.

The shortest version:

• Easee One — the budget pick. £405, 1.5 kg on the wall, bring your own cable.
• Indra Smart LUX — the slim, tough, tariff-aware one. £615, 78 mm deep, cable attached.

Where the £210 actually goes

Three places, roughly. First, the cable: the Smart LUX is tethered with a 6m cable; the Easee One is untethered, so you're using whatever Type 2 cable the car came with. Second, the body: 78 mm depth, IP67 against water and IK10 against impact on the Indra; IP54 on the Easee. Third, the software: the Smart LUX claims scheduling against more than a thousand UK tariffs, including Agile-style half-hourly slots. The Easee app does scheduled charging, but not tariff-aware automation — you set a window and it runs.

None of those are small differences. But none of them matter equally to every buyer, which is why the decision isn't a ranking exercise.

Does the tariff integration earn its keep?

On a fixed off-peak window — Octopus Go at 8.5p/kWh between 12:30am and 5:30am, say, or E.ON Next Drive at 7.5p — the Easee One is plenty. Set a schedule, forget about it, save the £210. The tariff doesn't move, so the Smart LUX's cleverness has nothing to chase.

On Octopus Agile, where rates shift every half hour and can touch 5p at the right moment, the picture changes. The Indra follows those movements; the Easee doesn't. Over a year of Agile charging, the gap will typically pay itself back. If you're on Octopus Intelligent Go, the calculation is different again — Intelligent Go optimises through its own backend, which thins out the Smart LUX's advantage and nudges you back toward the cheaper charger. Or, if tariff smartness is the whole point, toward the Ohme Home Pro at £535, which includes the 4G SIM that costs £250 extra on the Indra.

Tethered or untethered — the quieter decision

This one matters more than buyers tend to admit. Untethered means a clean wall when the car's away and a cable you carry with you; tethered means grab-and-plug at the end of a long day. Drivers with a short drive from door to car, in a covered spot, almost always prefer tethered once they've lived with both. Drivers on a shared driveway or an exposed front wall often prefer untethered — no dangling cable, nothing to trip over, nothing to steal.

The Easee One is untethered only. The Smart LUX is tethered only. If you know which camp you're in, that alone may decide the page.

Install and protection

The Easee One has Type B RCD and open-PEN detection built in, which usually shaves £100–£200 off install labour. The Smart LUX bundles SPD and PEN fault detection and lands in a similar place — £300–£500 on its quoted install range. Both should install cleanly on a standard single-phase supply. Neither does three-phase; if 22kW matters, you're on the wrong page and should be looking at the Wallbox Pulsar Max or Zaptec Go 2.

The Indra's IP67 and IK10 ratings are useful if the charger is going somewhere exposed — seaside, north-facing wall, a spot that cops the weather. For a sheltered garage or a porch, the Easee's IP54 is adequate.

The verdict

Buy the Easee One if:

• You're on a flat or fixed off-peak tariff and don't need half-hourly automation
• £405 is meaningfully better than £615 for your budget
• You prefer a clean wall and don't mind carrying the cable

Buy the Indra Smart LUX if:

• You're on Agile or want genuine multi-tariff flexibility without paying for a 4G SIM separately
• The charger goes on an exposed wall and needs IP67 protection
• A tethered cable matters more to you than saving £210

If asked to put one on a wall without knowing the tariff, it would be the Easee One — the price is the story, and the integrated protection keeps the install bill honest. But if the wall is exposed, or the tariff moves every half hour, the Smart LUX's £210 is money well spent. Smart-tariff buyers who don't need the ruggedness should also weigh the Ohme Home Pro comparison before committing.