EO Mini Pro 3 vs EVEC VEC03

£174 and a question of priorities

The EO Mini Pro 3 costs £523. The EVEC VEC03 costs £349. That £174 gap is wide enough to matter and narrow enough to tempt — especially when the cheaper charger bundles its own RCD and PEN fault protection inside the box, knocking roughly £100 off the electrician's bill.

• EO Mini Pro 3 — the smallest mainstream charger on the UK market, with a CT clamp for solar included. £523.
• EVEC VEC03 — built-in Type A RCD and PEN protection at £349, but run-out stock with a patchy app reputation.

What the VEC03's price actually buys

At £349, the VEC03 is one of the cheapest OZEV-approved smart chargers you can still find. The built-in Type A RCD (30 mA) with 6 mA DC leakage detection means your installer does not need to fit a separate protection device in the consumer unit — a saving of around £100 in labour and parts. That pulls the total installed cost closer to £700 than £900, which is difficult for anything else at this price to match. The Vorsprung Alpha Max is cheaper at £265, but it lacks the integrated protection.

If you rent or own a flat, the £500 OZEV grant covers the VEC03's £349 unit price outright and chips into the install too. That is a compelling arithmetic for anyone who wants a compliant charger on the wall without agonising over features.

The catch — and it is a significant one — is that the VEC03 is run-out stock. EVEC has replaced it with the vecGO 2.0, and the company's own product page banners the newer model. Buying a discontinued charger is not inherently reckless — the three-year parts-and-labour warranty still applies, and OCPP 1.6J means you are not locked to EVEC's own cloud. But spare-parts availability and firmware updates are questions with no guaranteed answers past the warranty window.

The EO's case: size and solar

The EO Mini Pro 3 measures 215 × 140 × 100 mm — roughly A5. If your mounting spot is a narrow garage pillar, a recessed alcove, or beside a doorway where a standard-sized unit would foul the frame, the EO is often the only charger that physically fits. That is not a marginal advantage; it is a binary one. Either the wall demands a small unit or it does not.

The included CT clamp for solar diversion is the other structural difference. The VEC03 supports solar integration too, but its CT clamp is sold separately. The EO's diversion is basic — nothing close to the myenergi Zappi GLO's Eco+ mode — but it is there in the box, at no extra cost. For a household with a modest solar array and no battery, it means surplus generation goes into the car rather than back to the grid at export rates.

On connectivity, the EO adds Ethernet alongside Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, with an optional 4G module. The VEC03 has Ethernet too, but no 4G fallback. In a detached garage with unreliable Wi-Fi, that 4G option on the EO could be the difference between a charger that schedules reliably and one that does not — and app reliability is the VEC03's most common customer complaint.

Neither charger handles smart tariffs well

This is the shared weakness. The VEC03 has no direct smart-tariff API. It is not on the Octopus Intelligent Go compatible list, and there is no hook into OVO Charge Anytime. The EO Mini Pro 3 can schedule for fixed-window tariffs like Octopus Go and EDF GoElectric, but it cannot chase half-hourly rates on Octopus Agile.

If your tariff strategy involves anything more sophisticated than "charge between midnight and five", neither charger is the right tool. The Ohme Home Pro at £539 — only £16 more than the EO — talks directly to Octopus, OVO, and others, and pays back its premium on variable rates within months. That comparison is covered more fully in the Ohme Home Pro vs EO Mini Pro 3 piece.

The verdict

Buy the EVEC VEC03 if:

• You want the lowest total installed cost and a flat-rate tariff suits you fine
• You are grant-eligible — the £500 OZEV grant covers the £349 unit and contributes to install
• You are comfortable buying run-out stock with a three-year warranty

Buy the EO Mini Pro 3 if:

• Your wall demands a charger no bigger than 215 × 140 mm
• You have solar panels and want the CT clamp included, not sold separately
• You are a British Gas customer — the Hive Power+ variant credits back 25% of charging costs on the EV Power+ tariff

For a buyer with a standard wall, a flat-rate tariff, and no solar panels, the VEC03 at £349 is the more rational purchase — provided you can still find one. Its days on shelves are numbered. If stock has dried up by the time you read this, the Sync Energy Wall Charger 2 at £400 occupies similar territory without the end-of-life question mark.