EO Mini Pro 3 vs NexBlue Point 2

The £11 between a proven small box and an ambitious new one

The EO Mini Pro 3 costs £523. The NexBlue Point 2 costs £534. Eleven pounds separates them — barely a rounding error in a home-charging install. Yet they represent quite different bets.

• EO Mini Pro 3 — the smallest mainstream charger in the UK at 215 × 140 × 100 mm, tethered with a 5-metre cable, three-year warranty. A known quantity from a known brand, albeit one migrating its software to ev.energy.
• NexBlue Point 2 — untethered, V2G-ready, OCPP 2.0.1, lifetime free 4G, five-year warranty. A lot of specification from a brand that hasn't yet accumulated years of UK field data.

What the NexBlue's extra £11 buys

Quite a lot, on the spec sheet. The NexBlue runs at 7.4kW against the EO's 7.2kW — a marginal difference in daily life, but a difference nonetheless. It includes a built-in 4G eSIM with no ongoing fee, where the EO offers 4G only as an optional extra. Its CT clamp handles both dynamic load balancing and solar surplus routing; the EO's CT clamp covers solar diversion but not load balancing in the same integrated way.

The headline items are ISO 15118 compliance and OCPP 2.0.1 — the protocols that underpin vehicle-to-grid and Plug & Charge. Whether V2G becomes a meaningful domestic reality in the next five years is an open question, but if it does, the NexBlue won't need replacing. The EO has no V2G pathway at all.

Then there is the warranty: five years against three. At near-identical prices, that gap is hard to overlook.

When the EO Mini Pro 3 is the right answer

Two scenarios favour the EO, and they are specific enough that you will know immediately if you are in one.

Physical space. At 215 × 140 mm, the EO is roughly A5-sized. If you are mounting inside a narrow garage, beside a doorway, or on a recessed wall where a standard-sized unit simply does not fit, the EO may be the only charger that works. The NexBlue, at 235 × 230 mm, is not enormous — but it is meaningfully wider.

British Gas Hive Power+. If British Gas is your energy supplier, the Hive Power+ version of the EO credits back 25 per cent of your charging costs on the EV Power+ tariff. No other charger on the market offers that structural discount. It is locked inside the British Gas ecosystem, but if you are already there, the arithmetic is compelling.

Outside those two cases, the EO's pitch weakens. It is a competent schedule-based charger — fine on Octopus Go or EDF GoElectric, where you set a fixed off-peak window and leave it alone. But it cannot chase half-hourly rates on Octopus Agile, and its app situation is in flux as EO retires its own platform in favour of ev.energy.

The NexBlue's honest risk

Brand maturity. NexBlue is new to UK homes. The hardware specification is impressive — IK10 impact resistance, 2.1 kg weight, OCPP 2.0.1 — but long-term reliability data does not exist yet. The installer network is smaller. If something goes wrong in year four, the support experience is an unknown.

The five-year warranty mitigates this somewhat. And the charger is untethered only, which suits some driveways and irritates others. If you prefer a permanently attached cable — no coiling, no forgetting it at the other house — the NexBlue does not offer that option. The EO does.

For buyers who want the NexBlue's tariff intelligence but from a more established brand, the Ohme Home Pro at £539 is the obvious alternative — just £5 more than the NexBlue, with deep Octopus Intelligent Go and Agile integration and a larger body of user feedback. That comparison is worth reading in its own right: Ohme Home Pro vs NexBlue Point 2.

The verdict

Buy the EO Mini Pro 3 if:

• Your mounting wall demands the smallest possible unit — nothing else at this price comes close to 215 × 140 mm
• You are on British Gas Hive Power+ and want the 25 per cent charging cashback
• You prefer a tethered charger with the cable permanently attached

Buy the NexBlue Point 2 if:

• You want V2G-ready hardware without paying V2G prices
• Lifetime free 4G matters — garages with poor Wi-Fi, outbuildings, detached setups
• A five-year warranty, rather than three, is worth the £11

For most buyers comparing these two, the NexBlue offers more charger for near-identical money. Its spec sheet reads like something £100 dearer. The risk is that the brand is young and the track record thin — a fair concern, but one the warranty largely covers. If your wall is tight, the EO earns its place through sheer compactness. If your wall is not tight, the NexBlue is the better £534 you will spend.