Indra Smart PRO vs CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3: £487 apart, different planets

A home charger and a car-park unit walk into a driveway

These two should not be on the same page. The Indra Smart PRO at £599 is a British-made single-phase home charger with smart-tariff scheduling and a surge protection device in the box. The CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 at £1,086 is a Swedish-engineered, three-phase, OCPP-native unit with a MID-approved meter and an IK10 impact rating — the sort of thing you bolt to a concrete pillar in a staff car park. The CTEK costs £487 more. Whether that premium buys you anything depends almost entirely on one question: how many phases does your electricity supply have?

• Indra Smart PRO — £599, single-phase, smart-tariff integration, SPD and CT clamp included. The sensible home pick.
• CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 — £1,086, three-phase 22kW native, OCPP 2.0.1, built-in Type B RCD and MID meter. For three-phase homes or light commercial use.

On single-phase, the CTEK is £487 of dead weight

Roughly 95% of UK homes have single-phase power. Wire the CTEK into one of them and it delivers ~7.4kW — exactly what the Indra delivers. You get the same charge speed, but you have paid £487 more, your install will cost £900–£1,300 instead of the Indra's £400–£600, and the unit weighs up to 24 kg versus the Indra's 5 kg. Your electrician will notice.

Worse, the CTEK has no first-party app for tariff scheduling. Want it to chase cheap rates on Octopus Intelligent Go or OVO Charge Anytime? You cannot. You would need to route through a third-party OCPP platform like Monta. The Indra, by contrast, integrates directly with Intelligent Go, Octopus Go, OVO Charge Anytime, and EDF GoElectric. For a single-phase home on an EV tariff — which is most readers of this page — the Indra is not just cheaper, it is more capable where it counts.

When the CTEK earns its price

Three-phase supply changes the arithmetic. At 22kW, the CTEK charges roughly three times faster than any 7.4kW unit. A 60 kWh battery goes from 20% to 80% in under two hours instead of five-plus. If you drive high miles, run a business from home, or share the charger between vehicles, that speed matters.

The CTEK also brings commercial-grade credentials. Its built-in MRCD Type B protection saves £150–£250 on an external RCD — a cost the Indra's installer will add. The MID-approved energy meter is legally valid for billing, useful if you reclaim mileage or share costs with a tenant. OCPP 2.0.1 and ISO 15118 mean the unit is not locked to any vendor's cloud; if CTEK's back-end disappeared tomorrow, you could point it at another. Five-year warranty versus the Indra's three.

For dynamic load balancing, the CTEK requires a separate NANOGRID Air gateway — an added cost. The Indra includes it. One more line item to weigh.

If you are comparing three-phase options specifically, the Zaptec Go 2 at £500 is the obvious alternative — lighter, cheaper, and also OCPP-capable, though it lacks the CTEK's built-in metering and Type B RCD.

The grant and what it does to the maths

Both chargers are OZEV-approved. Eligible renters and flat owners can claim the £500 grant. For the Indra at £599, that grant covers most of the unit price and leaves just £99 before installation — making it one of the cheapest routes onto a wall. For the CTEK at £1,086, the grant takes the unit to £586, but install costs of £900–£1,300 still push the total project north of £1,400. The Indra's all-in installed cost, even without the grant, is typically £899–£1,199. The CTEK's is closer to £1,900–£2,400.

The verdict

Buy the Indra Smart PRO if:

• Your home is single-phase — which it almost certainly is
• You want direct scheduling on Octopus or OVO tariffs without third-party middleware
• You want the lowest total installed cost, with SPD and CT clamp already in the box

Buy the CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 if:

• You have three-phase supply and want 22kW charging at home
• You need MID-approved metering for business mileage or shared billing
• You value open-protocol independence and a five-year warranty over app polish

For the typical UK home — single-phase, one EV, an Octopus or OVO tariff — the Indra Smart PRO is the right charger at less than half the total cost. The CTEK is fine hardware aimed at a narrow audience. If you are in that audience, you already know it. Everyone else should save the £487 and spend it on electricity.