Hypervolt Home 3 Pro vs Rolec EVO: the £241 question

The £241 that buys you a cable and a tougher shell

Two 7.4kW single-phase chargers, both OZEV-approved, both doing solar surplus, both with CT clamps in the box. The Hypervolt Home 3 Pro is £690. The Rolec EVO is £449. That's £241 between them, and most of it pays for two things: a tethered cable and an IP66 rating.

The shortest version:

• Hypervolt Home 3 Pro — tethered up to 10 metres, IP66 + IK10, UK phone support. The one to buy when you don't want to keep thinking about it.
• Rolec EVO — untethered, 5-year warranty, built in Lincolnshire, with installer-friendly protection built into the unit. The quiet value pick.

What the £241 actually buys

Strip the spec sheets down and the overlap is substantial. Both hit 7.4kW. Both do solar surplus charging with a CT clamp included — the Rolec EVO with its Eco and Eco+ modes, the Hypervolt Home 3 Pro with its own diversion logic. Both have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and app control. Both will schedule charging against an off-peak tariff like Octopus Go or E.ON Next Drive.

What the Hypervolt gives you for the extra £241: a tethered cable (5m, 7.5m, or 10m — the last is the longest on any charger on this site), an IP66 rating where the Rolec manages IP54, and interchangeable covers if the aesthetics matter. You also get a UK support line that actually answers.

What the Rolec gives you that the Hypervolt doesn't: built-in PME fault detection, a Type A RCD, and surge protection — all inside the unit. On a typical install that's £150–£250 off the labour and parts bill. Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, and Ethernet (the Hypervolt has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth only). Two RFID cards in the box. And five years of warranty as standard, where the Hypervolt wants £100 to extend its three to match.

Tethered or untethered — the decision that rules out one of them

This is the part most buyers get to first. If you want a cable permanently attached to the wall, the Rolec EVO is off the table — it's socket-only. If you'd rather plug your own cable in and keep the wall tidy when you're not charging, the Hypervolt Home 3 Pro is the wrong shape.

The 10-metre tethered option on the Hypervolt is the genuine differentiator. Drives that snake round the back of a house, garages set away from the parking spot, a car that sometimes lives on the street — this is where tethered at length earns its price. Against a short-cable tethered rival the Rolec can compete; against a 10-metre reach, it can't.

For everyone else, untethered is quietly the better call. You can swap cables, replace one if it's damaged for far less than replacing the charger, and the wall looks cleaner. If untethered suits you, the Rolec EVO is doing what the Hypervolt does for £241 less — with a longer warranty and install savings on top.

Where each one's ceiling is

The Hypervolt Home 3 Pro sits in an awkward middle. It's pricier than the Ohme Home Pro (£535) but lacks its tariff automation. It's cheaper than the Zappi GLO (£750) but its solar logic is more basic. The argument for it is breadth — it's the second-best answer to most questions, which for a lot of households is the right answer.

The Rolec EVO has a narrower ceiling. The consumer app is newer and still being updated over the air. There's no 4G fallback, so if your Wi-Fi drops the Ethernet port had better be wired. There's no on-unit display. And crucially there's no direct Octopus Intelligent Go integration — if that's your tariff, the Ohme Home Pro or a VCHRGD Seven Pro will do more with it.

Solar buyers with a larger array will want to look at the Zappi GLO vs Hypervolt comparison before settling — the Eco+ surplus logic on the Zappi is a tier above both units here.

The verdict

Buy the Hypervolt Home 3 Pro if:

• You need a tethered cable, particularly the 7.5m or 10m option
• Your mounting spot takes weather head-on and IP66 + IK10 matters
• You value a UK support line that picks up

Buy the Rolec EVO if:

• Untethered works for you and £241 is better spent elsewhere
• A 5-year warranty from a British manufacturer is the baseline you want
• Your installer will charge less thanks to the built-in PME and RCD protection

If we were putting one on a wall with no other variables, it'd be the Rolec EVO. £449, five years of warranty, and install savings that push the gap wider still — the Hypervolt has to justify every pound of its £241 premium, and for most driveways, it doesn't.