Pod Point Solo 3S vs CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3: Convenience or capability?

£999 installed vs £1,086 before you've called an electrician

These two chargers occupy the same price bracket only if you squint. The Pod Point Solo 3S costs £999 — and that figure includes standard installation, a five-year warranty, and someone else worrying about cable routing. The CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 costs £1,086 for the box on its own. Add a typical install of £900–£1,300 and the all-in price lands between £1,986 and £2,386. That is a different conversation entirely.

• Pod Point Solo 3S — £999 installed, 7.4kW, scheduled charging, no installer to find. The path of least resistance.
• CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 — £1,086 unit only, up to 22kW on three-phase, OCPP 2.0.1, MID-approved meter, built-in Type B RCD. Commercial-grade hardware for a domestic wall.

Who the CTEK is actually for

The Chargestorm Connected 3 is an oddity in the home-charger market. It weighs up to 24 kg — roughly four times the Pod Point's tethered unit. It speaks OCPP 1.6-J and 2.0.1, supports ISO 15118 plug-and-charge, carries a MID-approved energy meter with Eichrecht compliance, and has an IK10 impact rating that would survive a car park bollard strike. This is equipment designed for fleet depots and shared parking bays that happens to be OZEV-approved for domestic use.

If you have three-phase supply — or a credible plan to get it — the CTEK delivers 22kW natively, which halves charging time versus any 7.4kW single-phase unit. That matters for high-mileage drivers, households with two EVs on one charger, or anyone who genuinely needs the car topped up in under two hours rather than five. Paired with the Zaptec Go 2 at £500, the CTEK is the only other sub-£1,100 charger in the catalogue with native three-phase at 22kW.

On single-phase — which describes the vast majority of UK homes — the CTEK delivers ~7.4kW. Identical to the Pod Point. You would be paying nearly twice the total cost for hardware whose headline feature you cannot access.

The Pod Point's trade-off: convenience with strings

Pod Point's model is vertically integrated. You ring them, they schedule an installer from their network, they fit the charger, they warrant the lot. No quote-shopping, no coordinating a sparky and a separate supplier. For many buyers — particularly those who find the install process more daunting than the charger choice — this is the entire point.

The strings: you cannot pick your own installer, and you cannot buy the unit separately to save money on labour. The £999 is a take-it-or-leave-it package. If your install is straightforward — short cable run, consumer unit near the driveway — you are probably paying a premium for convenience. A unit like the Easee One at £405 plus a £400–£600 install could land you at £805–£1,005 with more flexibility. But Pod Point absorbs the coordination risk, and for some people that is worth every penny of the difference.

The other limitation is smart-tariff support. The Pod Point app handles scheduled charging — set a window, the charger obeys — but there is no direct API link to Octopus Intelligent Go or OVO Charge Anytime. On a fixed off-peak tariff like Octopus Go, a manual schedule works fine. On anything variable, you are leaving money on the table. The CTEK, for its part, is no better here — it relies on third-party OCPP apps like Monta for scheduling, with no native Octopus or OVO integration either. If smart-tariff optimisation is the priority, neither charger is the right answer. The Ohme Home Pro at £535 is.

The OZEV grant and what it means for each

Both chargers are OZEV-approved. For eligible renters and flat owners, the £500 grant reduces the Pod Point's installed cost to £499 — hard to argue with. For the CTEK, the grant brings the unit to £586, but the install bill remains. Even after the grant, the CTEK's total outlay sits around £1,486–£1,886. The arithmetic favours Pod Point decisively for grant-eligible buyers.

The verdict

Buy the Pod Point Solo 3S if:

• You want one phone call, one price, one warranty — no installer coordination
• Your home is single-phase, which statistically it almost certainly is
• You value the grant knocking the installed price to £499

Buy the CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 if:

• You have three-phase supply and need 22kW charging at home
• You want OCPP 2.0.1, MID metering, or built-in Type B RCD for a shared or semi-commercial setup
• You are comfortable sourcing your own installer and paying £900–£1,300 on top of the £1,086 unit

For the typical single-phase household wanting a charger fitted without fuss, the Pod Point Solo 3S is the straightforward pick. The CTEK is a superior piece of engineering in almost every measurable dimension — and irrelevant to roughly 95% of UK homes. Buy the hardware that matches your supply, not the spec sheet.