Ohme Home Pro vs Rolec EVO: automation or British build?

Automation or British build

Two sensible chargers, £86 apart, answering different questions. The Rolec EVO is £449 — UK-built in Lincolnshire, five-year warranty, untethered, and quietly stuffed with the protective kit that makes installers' lives cheaper. The Ohme Home Pro is £535 — tethered, with a colour display, a 4G SIM, and a direct line to your energy supplier's pricing API.

The shortest version:

• Rolec EVO — the British-built value pick. Five-year warranty, CT clamp in the box, PME fault detection built in.
• Ohme Home Pro — the tariff-aware one. Pays back its premium on Octopus Intelligent Go or Agile, not on flat rates.

Is the Ohme's £86 premium worth it?

It depends entirely on your tariff. The Ohme Home Pro holds a direct API relationship with Octopus, OVO and British Gas — it knows what your electricity costs in each half-hour slot and schedules itself accordingly. On Octopus Intelligent Go, which drops to 7p/kWh off-peak, that's genuine hands-off savings. On Octopus Agile, where rates move every thirty minutes, it's the only way to stay ahead.

The Rolec EVO can schedule charging and it supports smart-managed tariffs like OVO Charge Anytime — where the supplier, not the charger, handles the optimisation. What it won't do is talk natively to Intelligent Go's API. If you're on a fixed-window tariff like Octopus Go or EDF GoElectric, a plain schedule does the job, and the £86 saving stays in your pocket.

So: on a smart, variable tariff, pay the premium. On a fixed off-peak window, don't.

Where the Rolec EVO quietly wins

Two places. First, the warranty — five years versus three. Rolec has been manufacturing commercial EV-charging hardware for over a decade, and the EVO is covered for longer than any current Ohme product.

Second, and more importantly for the total bill: the install cost. The Rolec EVO includes built-in PME fault detection, a Type A RCD, surge protection, and a CT clamp for load balancing and solar integration. Most installers will quote £150–£250 less to fit one than they would for a charger needing a separate earth rod, PEN device or external CT clamp. That more than erases the £86 gap to the Ohme — in fact, it makes the Rolec cheaper on the driveway than the unit price suggests.

The catch: no cellular fallback. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Ethernet only. If your router barely reaches the driveway, the Ohme's included 4G SIM is worth real money. And there's no on-unit display — status lives in an app that's still maturing through OTA updates.

Tethered or untethered

One spec difference quietly decides this for some readers. The Ohme Home Pro is tethered with a 5-metre cable (8m extra cost); the Rolec EVO is untethered, socket only. If you want to plug in and walk away without unwinding a cable each time, Ohme. If you want a tidier wall, a shorter reach when you don't need it, and the option to swap cables later, Rolec.

Tesla owners already carry a Type 2 cable in the boot, so untethered isn't the inconvenience it looks. But if the charger sits in a draughty porch and you want charging to be a ten-second affair in January, tethered wins.

The verdict

Buy the Ohme Home Pro if:

• You're on Octopus Intelligent Go, Agile or another API-integrated smart tariff
• You want a tethered cable and a colour display on the unit
• Your Wi-Fi signal at the charger is unreliable

Buy the Rolec EVO if:

• You're on a flat-rate or fixed-window tariff and don't need API-level optimisation
• You want the longer warranty and lower installed cost
• You'd rather use your own cable and have a neater wall when not charging

For a Tesla owner on Intelligent Go, the Ohme Home Pro is the one to put on the wall — the automation earns back the £86 inside the first few months and keeps earning. For everyone else — and particularly anyone weighing up total install cost rather than unit price — the Rolec EVO is the harder-headed buy. Solar owners should also consider the Ohme vs Zappi GLO comparison before committing; Zappi's surplus-only diversion is still the benchmark there.