Indra Smart PRO vs Simpson & Partners Home 7: built-in extras or built-to-last?

The £50 sticker gap hides a bigger story

On price alone, this looks close. The Indra Smart PRO is £599; the Simpson & Partners Home 7 is £649 — a £50 gap. But the two chargers are pitched at different readers, and the real decision isn't about the sticker. It's about what's in the box and what's on the wall ten years from now.

• Indra Smart PRO — the install-costs charger. Surge protection and a solar CT clamp bundled in; the savings land on the electrician's invoice, not the receipt.
• Simpson & Partners Home 7 — the built-to-last charger. A ten-year enclosure warranty, anodised aluminium, optional 22kW three-phase, premium finishes.

What the Indra Smart PRO quietly includes

The Indra Smart PRO ships with a surge protection device and a CT clamp for solar. Neither is glamorous, both usually cost money. If your electrician would otherwise add an SPD to the install (commonly £100–£150 in labour and parts) and a CT clamp for solar diversion (£50–£100), the £599 unit cost shifts meaningfully downward on the final bill. The 6-metre tethered cable is a metre longer than the Simpson's, which matters more often than people expect on a real driveway.

The limits are honest. Single-phase only, so no 22kW route. The app is functional rather than polished. And the "V2G pioneer" framing is forward-looking marketing — the Smart PRO itself isn't a V2G charger. For smart-tariff scheduling — Octopus Intelligent Go, Octopus Go, OVO Charge Anytime, EDF GoElectric — it does the job. It doesn't chase half-hourly Octopus Agile prices the way the Ohme Home Pro does.

What the Simpson & Partners Home 7 actually offers for £50 more

The Simpson & Partners Home 7 is the design buy at this price. Anodised aluminium enclosure, Accoya wood and Cotswolds Green among the finishes, a ten-year warranty on the enclosure that nothing else under £700 comes close to. It's £346 below the Andersen A3 while carrying a longer outer warranty — which is the single most persuasive thing you can say about it.

Read the warranty twice, though. Ten years covers the enclosure; the electronics get three. That's still competitive, but it's not a decade of everything. The 22kW three-phase option is useful for the small number of UK homes with three-phase supply — fewer than 5% — and pointless for everyone else. The app is fine. The installer network is the smallest in this bracket, which is the real asterisk: call a local fitter before you commit, not after.

Which one pays you back

Think about the install, not the purchase. If your electrician was going to charge for an SPD and a CT clamp anyway, the Indra Smart PRO is effectively cheaper than its £599 implies — quite possibly undercutting the Tesla Wall Connector on all-in cost once those line items are removed. If your install is a straight 7kW cable-and-bracket job with no solar and no surge concerns, you're paying for parts you won't use, and the Easee One at £405 or the Tesla Wall Connector at £478 makes more sense.

The Simpson & Partners Home 7 earns its £50 premium differently: longevity and looks. If the charger will be visible from the street, if you care about build materials, if you want a warranty that outlasts most kitchen appliances — this is the one. If you have three-phase supply and want the 22kW headroom, it's one of the cheapest routes in.

For a deeper look at the design-tier question, the Andersen A3 vs Simpson & Partners Home 7 comparison covers that ground more directly.

The verdict

Buy the Indra Smart PRO if:

• Your install quote includes an SPD, or would benefit from one
• You have solar panels and want diversion set up on day one
• You want the longest cable in this pair (6 metres)

Buy the Simpson & Partners Home 7 if:

• Appearance matters and a ten-year enclosure warranty matters more
• You have (or are getting) three-phase supply and want 22kW
• You're comparing against the Andersen A3 and want the same build story for £346 less

If we were putting one on a wall without knowing anything else about the house, it'd be the Simpson. The warranty is the longest on the market, the finish is premium, and the three-phase option is a real hedge. The Indra is the smarter buy only when the install complexity rewards it — which, to be fair, is more often than people think. Get a quote first; let the electrician's line items decide.