EO Mini Pro 3 vs Ohme ePod: the £141 question

The £141 question

Two small chargers, two different ideas of what "small" means. The EO Mini Pro 3 is the shortest unit on the UK market — A5-sized, tethered, £550. The Ohme ePod is barely larger in footprint but weighs 1.48 kg, costs £409, and carries the same smart-tariff brain as the Ohme Home Pro. The EO is £141 more, and the cable it includes is roughly what you'll pay to buy one for the ePod. So the real price gap, once you've bought a Type 2 lead, is smaller than it looks.

• EO Mini Pro 3 — tethered, Ethernet-capable, British Gas Hive Power+ version offers 25% cashback. The physically smallest proper charger sold.
• Ohme ePod — untethered, cellular-only, the cleverest tariff brain in a 1.48 kg body.

What the £141 actually buys

A 5-metre tethered cable, Wi-Fi and Ethernet, and a slightly shorter body. That's the honest shopping list. The EO's Ethernet port matters more than it sounds — if your charger's going inside a detached garage with thick walls and patchy Wi-Fi, a wired connection is the difference between a charger that schedules reliably and one that drops offline on cold nights. The Ohme ePod answers the same problem differently, with a built-in multi-network SIM, but cellular assumes you have signal at the mounting position. In a basement car park or a steel-clad garage, you might not.

Against that, the ePod has the better tariff integration. Ohme's API talks directly to Octopus Intelligent Go, OVO Charge Anytime and British Gas — the charger and the supplier negotiate the cheap windows between them, without you writing a schedule. The EO offers presets for Octopus Go, EDF GoElectric and others, which is fine for fixed-window tariffs but not in the same league when the rates move every half hour.

When the EO earns its premium

Two scenarios. First, British Gas customers: the Hive Power+ variant of the EO pays back 25% of charging costs on the EV Power+ tariff. That's a structural discount no other charger in this pair matches, and over a few years of typical mileage it swamps the £141 gap. If you're committed to British Gas, the EO's your charger. Second, if your installer has flagged Wi-Fi as unreliable at the mounting point and your house has no 4G signal outside — rare but real, especially in rural stone cottages — the EO's Ethernet port is the safer bet.

Beyond those two cases, the logic thins. At 7.2kW the EO is marginally slower than the ePod's 7.4kW (both are single-phase, both pull roughly 7kW in the real world). The solar diversion is basic — fine, but if solar's the reason you're buying, the Zappi GLO does more for the money. The three-year warranty is average; the Rolec EVO gives you five for less.

When the ePod makes more sense

For most buyers, the ePod is the tidier decision. £409 for a charger, plus £100–£200 for a Type 2 cable you can carry with you when visiting friends or using a destination socket. You get Ohme's tariff integration, Solar Boost, dynamic load balancing and PEN fault protection built in. The £500 OZEV grant — applicable only if you're a renter or flat owner — wipes out the £409 unit price and chips into the install.

The ePod's one real compromise is connectivity. No Wi-Fi, no Ethernet, no fallback. If your phone shows two bars where the charger will live, you're fine; if it doesn't, check with an installer first.

The verdict

Buy the EO Mini Pro 3 if:

• You're a British Gas customer eyeing the Hive Power+ 25% cashback
• Your mounting position has poor cellular signal but good Wi-Fi or Ethernet
• You want a tethered cable included in the price

Buy the Ohme ePod if:

• You're on Octopus Intelligent Go, OVO or a half-hourly tariff
• Cellular signal is reliable where the charger will live
• You'd rather take a cable with you than leave one hanging on the wall

For most people, the ePod wins. It's cheaper, lighter, smarter on tariffs, and the untethered design is a genuine convenience for anyone who occasionally charges elsewhere. The EO's case is narrower — real, but narrower — and rests almost entirely on either British Gas loyalty or a connectivity quirk. If neither applies to you, spend the £141 on the cable and a nicer install, and put the Ohme ePod on the wall.