EO Mini Pro 3 vs Indra Smart PRO: the £49 that buys you an SPD

Two niche answers to different questions

The EO Mini Pro 3 costs £550. The Indra Smart PRO costs £599 — £49 more. Neither is the obvious default on a 7kW wall, and neither pretends to be. Each exists for a specific reason: the EO because it is small, the Indra because it ships with a surge protection device your electrician would otherwise add to the bill.

Pick the wrong one and you have paid mid-range money for a charger a Tesla Wall Connector or Easee One would beat on every axis. Pick the right one and you have solved a problem those cheaper chargers can't.

• EO Mini Pro 3 — 215 × 140 × 100 mm. The charger that fits where others don't, with a useful sideline in British Gas cashback.
• Indra Smart PRO — an SPD and a CT clamp in the box. The charger whose sticker price hides a cheaper install.

When the EO Mini Pro 3 earns its £550

Size. That's the headline, and it's a real one. At 215 × 140 × 100 mm, the EO Mini Pro 3 is the smallest mainstream charger sold in the UK — noticeably smaller than the Indra Smart PRO's 340 × 240 × 115 mm and half the weight. On a narrow pier between garage door and downpipe, or a recessed spot beside a front door, that matters more than any spec sheet.

The second reason is British Gas. The Hive Power+ variant of the EO hands back 25% of charging costs on the EV Power+ tariff — a structural discount no other charger on this list matches. If British Gas is your supplier and you intend to stay, the maths moves in the EO's favour faster than £49 ever could against the Indra.

The weaknesses are honest. 7.2kW rather than the standard 7.4kW — marginally slower, not enough to notice over a full night. Solar diversion is basic compared to a Zappi GLO; if solar is the reason you're buying, the Zappi vs EO comparison is the page you actually want.

When the Indra Smart PRO earns its £49 premium

The surge protection device. On a typical install, an SPD is £100–£150 of parts and labour tacked onto the quote. The Indra Smart PRO puts one in the box. The CT clamp for solar is also included — another £50–£100 your installer isn't billing for. Counted properly, the Indra is one of the cheapest chargers you can actually put on a wall, despite the £599 sticker.

The 6-metre cable is a metre longer than the EO's 5 metres — handy for awkward parking. Dynamic load balancing is built in, so the charger throttles itself rather than tripping the house main when the oven and the kettle both fire up. For a busy family kitchen sharing one consumer unit with a driveway, that's load-stakes.

The caveats are that the V2G pedigree is marketing rather than product — the Smart PRO doesn't actually do V2G today. The app is functional but not a patch on Ohme's, and the installer network is thinner than myenergi's or Ohme's. If tariff automation is what you're after, the Ohme Home Pro does it better for £64 less than the Indra, and the Ohme vs Indra comparison makes that case in detail.

The tariff question

Both chargers handle smart-tariff presets. Neither does it the way Ohme Home Pro does. On Octopus Go, with its fixed 00:30–05:30 window at 8.5p/kWh, either will do — a schedule is a schedule. On Octopus Intelligent Go at 7p/kWh, both integrate through the Octopus API, and for most Tesla drivers the car itself does the heavy lifting regardless of charger.

Where neither wants to live is on Octopus Agile — half-hourly pricing asks more of a charger than either app delivers.

The verdict

Buy the EO Mini Pro 3 if:

• Your wall can't fit a larger unit
• You're a British Gas customer planning to take the Hive Power+ 25% cashback
• You want the Ethernet fallback for a garage where Wi-Fi is flaky

Buy the Indra Smart PRO if:

• Your install quote includes a surge protection device (or you want one and don't want to pay extra)
• You need a 6-metre cable and dynamic load balancing
• British manufacturing matters to you

For most readers, the honest answer is neither. A Tesla Wall Connector at £478 does more for less. If the specific problem each solves is your specific problem, they earn their place — otherwise, look elsewhere. Forced to put one on a wall today with no other context, it's the Indra: the SPD is a real saving, and "a charger and a surge device for £599" is a harder proposition to argue with than "a smaller charger for £550".