EO Mini Pro 3 vs Enphase IQ EV Charger 2

£523 against £1,050 — and the answer is almost always the cheaper one

The EO Mini Pro 3 costs £523. The Enphase IQ EV Charger 2 costs £1,050. That is a £527 gap — enough to cover installation on the EO and still have change. The Enphase is not a bad charger. It is a charger built for a narrow audience, priced at a level that punishes everyone outside it.

• EO Mini Pro 3 — the smallest mainstream charger on the UK market, 215 × 140 × 100 mm, with schedule-based smart charging via the ev.energy app. £523, OZEV-approved.
• Enphase IQ EV Charger 2 — a 7.4kW charger designed as the fourth node in an Enphase solar-and-battery system. £1,050, not OZEV-approved.

Who the Enphase is actually for

The Enphase earns its place on exactly one kind of wall: one already surrounded by Enphase hardware. If you have Enphase IQ microinverters, an IQ Gateway, and ideally an IQ Battery, the charger slots into a single app that manages panels, storage, and car together. It chases solar surplus from as little as 1.38 kW, adjusting in 1A increments roughly every 30 seconds. The AI-led source selection — deciding whether to pull from solar, battery, or grid — is the feature you are paying for, and it only works within the Enphase ecosystem.

Strip that ecosystem away and you have a 7.4kW single-phase charger with a 7.5-metre cable, a five-year warranty, and no integration with any UK smart tariff. No Octopus Intelligent Go. No Octopus Agile. No EDF GoElectric. At £1,050, that is a hard sell. The Ohme Home Pro at £539 handles half-hourly tariff optimisation natively. The Zappi GLO at £599 does solar diversion with its Eco+ mode — more mature, more widely installed, and £451 cheaper.

The EO's case — and its limits

The EO Mini Pro 3 is not the most capable charger at its price. It runs at 7.2kW rather than the usual 7.4kW — a difference that adds perhaps five minutes to a full overnight charge. Its app situation is in flux: EO is retiring its own software and migrating users to the ev.energy platform, which handles scheduling for two-rate tariffs like Octopus Go and EDF GoElectric but does not chase half-hourly rates the way the Ohme Home Pro does.

What the EO does have is size. At 215 × 140 mm — roughly A5 — it fits in spots where nothing else will. Narrow garage wall beside a boiler. Recessed alcove. Tight external mount near a doorway. If physical space is the constraint, the EO is often the only option that passes the tape-measure test. The included CT clamp for solar diversion is a bonus, though basic compared to the Zappi's granular control.

The three-year warranty is average. An ethernet port alongside Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is a quiet advantage — wired connections do not drop out when the garage door closes and kills the signal.

The grant question

The EO Mini Pro 3 is OZEV-approved. Eligible renters and flat owners can claim the £500 grant, which brings the effective unit price down to £23 before installation. That is an extraordinary proposition for a smart charger with solar capability.

The Enphase is not currently on the OZEV-approved list. At £1,050 with no grant, the total cost installed — charger plus the £900–£1,300 the Enphase typically requires — can approach £2,350. The EO installed with the grant might land under £500 all-in. The arithmetic is not subtle.

The verdict

Buy the EO Mini Pro 3 if:

• You need the smallest possible charger for a tight mounting location
• You want a competent schedule-based smart charger at a sensible price
• You are OZEV-eligible and want the grant to cover the unit outright

Buy the Enphase IQ EV Charger 2 if:

• You already run Enphase microinverters and an IQ Battery and want single-app control
• The 7.5-metre cable length is necessary and you value the five-year warranty
• You have no interest in UK smart-tariff integration and are buying purely for solar optimisation within the Enphase ecosystem

For the vast majority of UK buyers, the EO is the sensible pick — or rather, the EO is a sensible pick, because the field around it is strong. The Hypervolt Home 3 Pro at £625 offers a 10-metre cable and IP66 build. The Zappi GLO at £599 handles solar diversion more capably. If smart tariffs are the priority, the comparison you want is Ohme Home Pro vs EO Mini Pro 3.

The Enphase is a fine piece of hardware trapped behind a price that only makes sense inside its own walled garden. If you are inside that garden, it belongs. If you are not — and most people are not — spend the £527 difference on something more useful. Electricity, for instance.