Simpson & Partners Home 7 vs CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3: £437 apart, worlds apart

A home charger and a commercial unit walk onto the same wall

The Simpson & Partners Home 7 costs £649. The CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 costs £1,086. That is a £437 gap — wide enough to cover a standard installation on its own. And yet both chargers land 7kW on a single-phase supply and offer a 22kW three-phase option. The difference is not what they deliver to your car. It is what they were designed *for*.

• Simpson & Partners Home 7 — a UK-made home charger with smart-tariff scheduling, premium finishes, and a 10-year enclosure warranty. £649.
• CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 — a Swedish-engineered unit built to commercial standards, with OCPP, MID metering, and RFID authentication. £1,086.

Why the CTEK costs what it costs

The Chargestorm Connected 3 is not overpriced. It is over-specced — for a home. Its MID-approved, Eichrecht-compliant energy meter exists so businesses can bill per kWh and prove it to an auditor. Its OCPP 1.6-J and 2.0.1 support means a fleet manager can plug it into any back-end. Its built-in MRCD Type B protection saves the electrician fitting a separate device on the consumer unit. Its IK10 impact rating means a delivery van reversing into it will lose the argument.

None of that is frivolous. All of it is irrelevant if you are charging one Tesla on your driveway.

The install cost tells the same story. CTEK quotes £900–£1,300 typical, against £400–£600 for the Simpson & Partners. Add unit to install and the total-cost gap can stretch past £800. The unit itself weighs up to 24 kg — nearly five times the Simpson & Partners' 5.5 kg — which tells you something about what is inside and how much of it a homeowner will ever use.

Smart tariffs: the Simpson & Partners wins by default

The Simpson & Partners Home 7 supports scheduled charging through its own app, with named integration for Octopus Go, OVO Charge Anytime, and EDF GoElectric. Set your off-peak window — 00:30–05:30 on Octopus Go, say — and the charger handles the rest.

The CTEK has no first-party app for tariff control. Scheduling requires a third-party OCPP platform such as Monta. That is a workable solution for a workplace car park with an IT department. For a homeowner who wants to plug in and walk away, it is an unnecessary layer. And it rules out direct integration with Octopus Intelligent Go or OVO Charge Anytime, both of which rely on the charger talking to the supplier — something the CTEK cannot do natively.

If tariff optimisation matters to you — and at UK electricity prices, it should — the Simpson & Partners is the more capable home charger despite costing £437 less.

Three-phase buyers still have a choice

Both chargers offer 22kW on three-phase supply. The CTEK's case is stronger here: its built-in Type B RCD protection and MID metering are genuinely useful for anyone who might later want to recoup costs — a landlord billing a tenant, for instance, or a small business claiming mileage. The NANOGRID dynamic load balancing (via a separate gateway) is a proper feature for properties running multiple high-draw appliances.

But the Simpson & Partners also does 22kW on three phases, at £649. If you do not need auditable metering or OCPP back-end access, it is hard to justify the premium. Three-phase buyers who want something between these two — open-protocol, lighter on the wallet — should also look at the Zaptec Go 2 at £500.

Build and warranty

The Simpson & Partners is UK-manufactured from anodised aluminium, available in finishes including Accoya wood and Cotswolds Green. Its 10-year enclosure warranty is the longest on the UK market, though the internal electronics carry a shorter three-year term. The CTEK offers five years across the board and an IP54/IK10 rating — the IK10 impact resistance is a step above anything in the residential market.

For a charger bolted to the side of a house, the Simpson & Partners' enclosure warranty is more meaningful than the CTEK's vandal resistance. If your charger faces a public pavement or a shared car park, the calculus shifts — but at that point, you are arguably looking at a commercial installation anyway.

Which to buy

Buy the Simpson & Partners Home 7 if:

• You are on single-phase supply and want smart-tariff scheduling out of the box
• You care about how the charger looks on your wall — the finish options are among the best under £700
• You want the longest enclosure warranty in the UK market and £437 left over

Buy the CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 if:

• You need MID-approved metering for billing or expense claims
• You require OCPP compliance for a managed back-end or future workplace use
• You have three-phase supply *and* a specific reason for commercial-grade hardware at home

For a home on a residential driveway, the Simpson & Partners is the right charger. It charges at the same rate, integrates with the tariffs that save you money, and leaves £437 in your pocket. The CTEK is a fine piece of engineering — it just belongs in a different building.