Ohme Home Pro vs Simpson & Partners Home 7: software or steel?

Software or steel: the £114 question

Two chargers, two philosophies. The Ohme Home Pro at £535 is a piece of software with a plug on it — its job is to talk to your energy supplier and charge when electrons are cheap. The Simpson & Partners Home 7 at £649 is a piece of British engineering with a ten-year enclosure warranty and an anodised aluminium shell you'd be happy to mount next to the front door.

The shortest version:

• Ohme Home Pro — the smart-tariff charger. Direct API into Octopus, OVO and British Gas; built-in 4G; solar diverting out of the box.
• Simpson & Partners Home 7 — the built-to-last charger. Ten-year enclosure warranty, UK-made, three-phase option, premium finishes.

The £114 gap between them isn't buying more charging. Both top out at 7kW on a single-phase supply, which is all most UK homes have. It's buying a different sort of reassurance.

What the Ohme does that the Simpson doesn't

The Ohme Home Pro has a direct API integration with Octopus. On Octopus Intelligent Go, that means the charger itself — not a schedule, not a rough estimate — gets told which half-hours are cheap and charges then. You plug in at 7pm; the car charges at 7p/kWh somewhere between 11:30pm and 5:30am without your involvement. Same story on OVO Charge Anytime, where the whole premise is the charger managing the timing.

The Simpson & Partners Home 7 supports smart-tariff scheduling too — Octopus Go, OVO, EDF GoElectric — but through its own app, which is competent rather than polished. For a fixed off-peak window like Octopus Go's 12:30–5:30, that's enough. For the half-hourly chase of Intelligent Go or Octopus Agile, the Ohme's native integration is a meaningful step ahead.

The Ohme also has a 4G SIM included for three years. If your garage Wi-Fi is marginal — and a lot of garage Wi-Fi is — that alone is worth something. The Simpson is Wi-Fi only.

What the Simpson does that the Ohme doesn't

Build quality and warranty. The Simpson's enclosure is covered for ten years, the longest on the UK market. The Ohme's warranty is three. Read the small print — Simpson's internal electronics are also three years — and the practical gap narrows. But the physical casing, the thing that has to survive a decade of weather, is engineered and guaranteed to do so. The Ohme is IP65; the Simpson is IP54. On paper the Ohme is more sealed, though in a typical UK installation under a porch or on a sheltered wall, neither is going to get wet in ways the other wouldn't.

Then there's three-phase. The Simpson offers a 22kW version for the fraction of UK homes with three-phase supply — rare, but if you have it, 22kW is a genuine jump. The Ohme is single-phase only.

And finish. Simpson & Partners do Accoya wood and Cotswolds Green among other options. If the charger is going on a visible wall and the design matters, this is real. The Ohme is a tidy white box. If aesthetics are the whole point, the Andersen A3 at £995 is the other direction to look — and we've written about that tradeoff in the Andersen vs Simpson comparison.

Solar, and who should look elsewhere

Both support solar charging — the Ohme has solar diverting built in (no separate CT clamp to buy), the Simpson is solar compatible through its app. If solar is the central reason you're buying, neither is the right answer. The myenergi Zappi GLO is the purpose-built choice, and the Ohme vs Zappi GLO comparison covers why.

The verdict

Buy the Ohme Home Pro if:

• You're on Intelligent Go, Agile, or OVO Charge Anytime
• You want solar diverting without adding kit
• Your Wi-Fi doesn't quite reach the charger

Buy the Simpson & Partners Home 7 if:

• You want a ten-year enclosure warranty and UK manufacture
• You have three-phase and want the 22kW option
• The charger is going somewhere visible and finish matters

If pressed, the Ohme wins on merit for most buyers. It does the one thing a smart charger exists to do — move your charging into the cheapest half-hours without asking — better than almost anything at the price. The Simpson is the right answer for a narrower reader: the one who values longevity, provenance and looks, and is willing to pay £114 for them. Both are honest products. Decide which kind of honesty you're after.