EO Mini Pro 3 vs VCHRGD Seven Pro

£93 apart — and it is not the cheaper one making excuses

The EO Mini Pro 3 costs £523. The VCHRGD Seven Pro costs £430. That £93 gap would be unremarkable if the dearer charger offered more. It does not. The VCHRGD charges faster (7.4kW versus 7.2kW), carries a longer cable (7.5 metres versus 5), includes RFID cards, a cable lock, OCPP 1.6J support, and two dedicated solar modes. The EO's claim is different — it is the smallest mainstream charger in the country, and for a specific subset of British Gas customers it unlocks a 25% cashback on charging costs. Those are real advantages. They are just narrow ones.

• EO Mini Pro 3 — the charger you buy because nothing else fits the wall. £523, 5-metre cable, 7.2kW, tiny footprint.
• VCHRGD Seven Pro — the charger you buy because you want the most hardware for £430. Longer cable, faster speed, solar, RFID, OCPP.

When the EO Mini Pro 3 is the right answer

A 215 × 140 × 100 mm enclosure, roughly 2.5 kg. If your mounting location is a narrow pillar between two garage doors, a recessed alcove, or a tight spot beside a front entrance, the EO may be the only unit that physically works. No other charger in the catalogue approaches that footprint — the VCHRGD, at 300 × 180 × 90 mm, is nearly twice the frontal area.

The second scenario is the British Gas Hive Power+ tariff. That scheme credits back 25% of charging costs, and it only works with the EO Mini Pro 3. If you are already a British Gas customer on British Gas EV Power at 9p/kWh off-peak, the cashback drops your effective cost to under 7p — competitive with EDF GoElectric at 6.99p/kWh, without switching supplier. That is a structural saving no other charger can replicate. But it locks you into one supplier's ecosystem, and it requires the Hive platform on top of the ev.energy app EO is migrating owners to. Two apps, one charger, one supplier — that is the deal.

The VCHRGD's feature list at £430 is hard to argue with

At £430, the Seven Pro undercuts the Tesla Wall Connector by £45 and the Easee One by £59, while offering features neither includes. Two solar modes — Solar Export and Solar Only — with a CT clamp in the box. RFID with two cards, useful if you share a driveway or want to restrict access. A cable lock, which the EO lacks entirely. OCPP 1.6J, letting it talk to third-party energy platforms if you outgrow the Powerverse app.

That 7.5-metre tethered cable is 2.5 metres longer than the EO's 5-metre lead. If your charger sits at the front of a garage and you park nose-in, 5 metres may not reach the charge port on some vehicles. The VCHRGD removes that worry.

The honest caveat: VCHRGD is a newer brand. There is no five-year track record to point to, no large installed base generating long-term reliability data. The Powerverse app — with its Raya AI assistant — is a third-party dependency. If the platform changes direction, your smart features go with it. The same is true of the EO, mind — EO is retiring its own app and pushing owners onto ev.energy, a platform many buyers did not choose when they bought the charger. Neither unit is immune to platform risk.

Smart tariff handling — a draw, mostly

Both chargers handle scheduled charging for fixed-window tariffs like Octopus Go (8.5p/kWh, 00:30–05:30). The VCHRGD integrates with Octopus Intelligent Go, which extends off-peak charging to 23:30–05:30 at 8p/kWh and can slot extra charging into cheap half-hour windows. The EO, via ev.energy, supports smart tariff scheduling too, though it is not on Octopus's Intelligent Go approved list.

Neither charger matches the Ohme Home Pro for half-hourly tariff optimisation on Octopus Agile. If variable-rate chasing is the priority, the Ohme — at £539 — is the better tool. For fixed-window tariffs, both the EO and the VCHRGD do the job.

Grant-eligible buyers pay even less

Both chargers are OZEV-approved. Eligible renters and flat owners can claim the £500 grant. For the VCHRGD at £430, that grant covers the unit outright and contributes towards installation costs too. For the EO at £523, the grant reduces the unit cost to £23. Either way, the grant narrows the gap between these two and more expensive options — but it does not change which is the better charger. It just makes the VCHRGD an even more striking proposition.

The verdict

Buy the EO Mini Pro 3 if:

• Your mounting space is too tight for a standard-sized unit — nothing else at 215 × 140 mm exists
• You are on British Gas Hive Power+ and the 25% cashback is worth the ecosystem lock-in
• You need Ethernet or optional 4G for a location with poor Wi-Fi

Buy the VCHRGD Seven Pro if:

• You want the most hardware for the least money — solar, RFID, cable lock, OCPP, 7.5-metre cable, all for £430
• You have solar panels and want a dedicated Solar Only surplus mode
• You value cable reach — 7.5 metres versus 5

For the majority of buyers, the VCHRGD Seven Pro is the better charger at the lower price. The EO Mini Pro 3 is not a poor product — it is a specialist one, and specialists earn their keep only when the specialism matters. If your wall is tight or your energy bill goes through British Gas, the EO has a case. Everyone else should save the £93.