Easee One vs Zaptec Go 2: the £95 question

The £95 question

Two untethered Scandinavian chargers, both IP54, both 7.4kW on single-phase, both around the same physical footprint. One costs £405 and aims squarely at the cheapest competent install on the UK market. The other costs £500 and sells you a future — vehicle-to-grid — that is not yet here.

The shortest version:

• Easee One — £405, the cheapest mainstream charger in Britain. Integrated protection that trims install labour. Everyday job, done.
• **Zaptec Go 2 — £500, three-phase capable, MID-metered, V2G-certified. A bet on what home charging becomes.

What the Easee's £405 actually buys

The headline is the price, but the quieter value is inside the box. The Easee One bundles a Type B RCD and open-PEN detection on the board itself — protections that an installer would otherwise fit externally, at £100–£200 in parts and labour. On a clean install, total landed cost lives close to £700. Factor in the £500 OZEV grant if you qualify (flat owners and renters), and the grant covers the unit outright and contributes meaningfully toward the install bill.

The trade-offs are honest. Single-phase only — no 22kW route. Untethered, so you supply and carry the cable. IP54 is adequate rather than generous. And the app schedules charging by clock time only; it does not speak to your supplier. On Octopus Go or E.ON Next Drive, where the cheap window is fixed, that's fine — set it once, forget it. On Octopus Agile, where prices move every half hour, you're leaving money on the table.

What the Zaptec's extra £95 actually buys

Three things, in descending order of usefulness today.

First, the MID-approved energy meter. Readings are legally certified, which matters if you're reclaiming charging costs from an employer or a company-car scheme. Second, the three-phase capability — the Zaptec Go 2 auto-switches between single- and three-phase up to 22kW. For the small minority of UK homes with three-phase supply, that alone justifies the premium. For everyone else, it's a dormant feature.

Third, and the reason this charger exists: V2G certification. The Zaptec is the only AC home charger in the UK certified ready for vehicle-to-grid. The catch is the caveat — V2G at the domestic AC level is still emerging. Compatible cars are few, compatible tariffs fewer, and the timeline from "certified ready" to "actually exporting to your supplier at a meaningful rate" is measured in years, not months. You are buying optionality.

The five-year warranty against the Easee's three is a smaller but real sweetener — at this price bracket, two extra years of cover is not nothing.

Neither is the right answer for smart-tariff buyers

Worth naming directly: if your reason for upgrading from a dumb socket is tariff optimisation, neither of these is the sharpest tool. Both rely on manual scheduling through their own apps. Neither has a proper supplier API. If you're on Octopus Intelligent Go or planning to move to Octopus Agile, the Ohme Home Pro at £535 is the charger you actually want — it integrates with Octopus at the half-hour level in a way the Easee and Zaptec do not. That's £35 more than the Zaptec, £130 more than the Easee, and most smart-tariff users earn the gap back inside a year.

Solar buyers are a different conversation again — the Ohme vs Zappi GLO comparison handles that properly.

The verdict

Buy the Easee One if:

• You want the cheapest competent install on the UK market
• Your tariff has a fixed off-peak window (Octopus Go, EDF GoElectric, E.ON Next Drive)
• You have single-phase supply and no plans for three-phase upgrade

Buy the Zaptec Go 2 if:

• You have three-phase supply and want the 22kW headroom
• You need MID-certified meter readings for expense reimbursement
• You believe V2G will arrive in the next five years and want to be ready

For most readers, the answer is the Easee One. £405 buys a charger that does the daily work as well as anything twice its price, and the integrated protection quietly refunds some of the install bill. The Zaptec Go 2 is a more interesting charger, and on paper the better one — but £95 of that £500 is future-proofing you may never cash in. If V2G matters to you, it matters; if it doesn't, the cheaper unit is the sensible buy.