GivEnergy EV Charger vs EO Mini Pro 3: battery or compact?

Two chargers, two specific jobs

These aren't close cousins. The GivEnergy EV Charger at £478 is a specialist — a unit designed to move stored electricity out of a home battery and into a car. The EO Mini Pro 3 at £550 is a generalist with one distinctive trick: it's the smallest proper charger sold in the UK, barely larger than a paperback.

£72 separates them. That figure is almost beside the point. The question is whether you own a home battery or a tight wall.

• GivEnergy EV Charger — the charger to buy if a home battery sits somewhere in your house. Ordinary otherwise.
• EO Mini Pro 3 — the charger to buy if your mounting space is cramped, or if British Gas supplies your electricity.

When the GivEnergy earns its £478

The battery-to-EV feature is the argument. Most chargers with "solar mode" can only divert live sunshine — the power your panels are making right now. The GivEnergy goes further: it will draw from a home battery that was itself filled at 7p on Octopus Intelligent Go or 5p on Octopus Agile, and push that stored energy into the car at any hour of the day. If you have a battery and a variable tariff, this is the only charger on this page that understands what to do with them.

It also works with compatible third-party batteries, not just GivEnergy's own — which is unusual, and means you're not locked in on your next upgrade. The rest of the package is ordinary: 5-metre tethered cable, 7kW, IP65, a basic Wi-Fi app, a 3-year warranty. Without a battery, you're paying £478 for a workmanlike charger. The Easee One undercuts it at £405, the Ohme Home Pro out-thinks it on tariffs for £535.

When the EO earns its £550

The EO Mini Pro 3 is 215 × 140 × 100 mm and 2.5 kg. That matters more often than people expect. Narrow pier between garage door and downpipe; recessed porch where a standard unit would foul the frame; a rented flat where the landlord wants something that looks like a doorbell rather than a wall safe. In any of those, the EO is the only mainstream charger that fits without compromise. The Wallbox Pulsar Max is close, but the EO is still smaller.

The second reason to buy it is commercial. If you're on British Gas, the Hive Power+ version credits back 25% of your charging costs on the EV Power+ tariff. That's a structural discount — not a promo — and it exists with no other charger. Connectivity is also unusually thorough: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Ethernet in the box, with optional 4G. If your charging spot has dreadful Wi-Fi, the Ethernet port is quietly useful.

Against that: 7.2kW rather than 7.4kW (trivial in practice), schedule-based tariff presets rather than live API integration, and basic solar diversion. At £550, you're paying a modest premium for size and, for British Gas customers, genuine rebate maths.

Which to buy

Buy the GivEnergy EV Charger if:

• You already own, or plan to own, a home battery (GivEnergy or compatible)
• You want stored overnight-cheap energy to reach the car, not just live solar
• You value whole-home energy visibility in one portal

Buy the EO Mini Pro 3 if:

• Your mounting location demands the smallest unit on the market
• You're a British Gas customer eligible for the Hive Power+ 25% cashback
• You need Ethernet or 4G connectivity because Wi-Fi is unreliable where the charger lives

On a blank wall, with no battery and no British Gas account, neither is the obvious answer. The Tesla Wall Connector delivers more charger for £478, and the Ohme Home Pro is the smarter companion to a variable tariff.

Put one on a wall? If a home battery exists, the GivEnergy — its party trick justifies the whole purchase. If not, and the wall is the usual shape, we'd pass on both and look at the Ohme vs Tesla comparison instead. Solar-heavy households should read the Zappi GLO comparison before deciding — solar diversion is a different engineering problem again.