Indra Smart PRO vs CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3

£395 against £1,086 — two chargers that barely overlap

These are not rivals in the usual sense. The Indra Smart PRO costs £395 and is built for the single-phase homes that make up the overwhelming majority of UK housing stock. The CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 costs £1,086 and is engineered like a small commercial unit — three-phase native, OCPP-compliant, 24 kg on the wall. The £691 gap is not a premium for polish. It buys a fundamentally different class of hardware.

• Indra Smart PRO — £395, single-phase 7.4kW, smart tariff integration, surge protection and CT clamp in the box. The budget charger that quietly undercuts its own price.
• CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 — £1,086, up to 22kW on three-phase, OCPP 1.6-J and 2.0.1, MID-approved meter, built-in Type B RCD. A car-park charger that happens to fit on a house wall.

Why the Indra wins on a single-phase home

On single-phase — which is what most readers here have — both chargers deliver roughly 7.4kW. The performance difference is nil. The cost difference is £691. That alone should settle it, but the Indra adds a few details that widen the gap further.

Surge protection is included in the box. Most installers add an SPD to the consumer unit at £100–£150; with the Indra, that line item disappears. The CT clamp for solar diversion is also bundled — another £50–£100 saved elsewhere. Factor those in and the effective unit cost drifts towards £150–£250, which is territory where almost nothing competes. The EVEC VEC03 at £349 and the Rolec EVO at £356 come close on sticker price, but neither includes both an SPD and a CT clamp.

Smart tariff support is direct. The Indra talks to Octopus Intelligent Go, Octopus Go, OVO Charge Anytime, and EDF GoElectric without an intermediary. The CTEK has no first-party tariff integration at all — scheduling requires a third-party OCPP platform like Monta. That is a meaningful friction for anyone who just wants to plug in and let the charger chase cheap rates overnight.

The Indra's app is basic. Nobody would call it elegant. But it does the job, and for £395 the expectation is modest. If app quality matters more — say, half-hourly Agile optimisation — the Ohme Home Pro at £539 is the better step up, not the CTEK.

When the CTEK earns its price

Three-phase supply. That is the dividing line. If you have it — or have committed to getting it — the CTEK delivers 22kW, which is roughly three times the single-phase rate. A 60 kWh battery goes from flat to full in under three hours rather than eight. For high-mileage drivers or households sharing a charger between two cars, that speed matters.

The engineering is commercial-grade. A built-in MRCD Type B means no separate £200+ RCD in the consumer unit. The MID-approved energy meter is Eichrecht-compliant — useful if you ever need auditable billing, say for a company car or a landlord reclaiming costs. OCPP 1.6-J and 2.0.1 mean the charger is not locked to any single vendor back-end; it can move between management platforms as the market shifts. ISO 15118 plug-and-charge readiness is forward-looking in a way that few domestic chargers bother with. The five-year warranty is two years longer than the Indra's three.

Installation costs reflect the hardware. Expect £900–£1,300, and more if a three-phase supply upgrade is part of the project. Total outlay — unit plus install — could reach £2,400 before the OZEV grant. After the £500 grant (which applies; the CTEK was OZEV-approved in December 2024), the unit drops to £586, but the install bill remains substantial.

The closest domestic rival is the Zaptec Go 2 at £638, which also supports three-phase 22kW and OCPP. It is lighter, cheaper, and has a growing UK installer base. Anyone weighing the CTEK for three-phase use should look at that comparison carefully — the Zaptec Go 2 vs CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 page covers the detail.

The verdict

Buy the Indra Smart PRO if:

• You have a single-phase home and want the lowest realistic total cost — unit, SPD, and CT clamp included for £395.
• You want direct smart tariff integration with Octopus, OVO, or EDF without fiddling with OCPP platforms.
• Solar self-consumption matters and you do not want to buy a separate CT clamp.

Buy the CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 if:

• You have or are installing three-phase supply and want 22kW charging at home.
• You need OCPP compliance, a MID-approved meter, or auditable energy billing.
• You value a five-year warranty and built-in Type B RCD protection over upfront savings.

For the single-phase majority, the Indra at £395 is the charger to buy. It is not glamorous — the app is plain, the installer network is smaller than Ohme's or myenergi's — but the arithmetic is hard to argue with. The CTEK is a fine piece of hardware aimed at a narrow audience: three-phase homes that want commercial-grade features on a residential wall. If that is you, it deserves a look. If it is not, the £691 is better spent elsewhere — or not spent at all.