Simpson & Partners Home 7 vs CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3

A domestic charger and a commercial one walk onto the same driveway

The Simpson & Partners Home 7 costs £649. The CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 costs £1,086. That is a £437 gap — enough to cover a standard installation. They both offer 22kW three-phase charging, they are both OZEV-approved, and they both mount on a wall. The similarity ends there.

• Simpson & Partners Home 7 — a UK-made aluminium home charger with a 10-year enclosure warranty, native smart-tariff scheduling, and premium finishes. £649.
• CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 — a Swedish-engineered unit built to commercial spec: MID-approved metering, OCPP 1.6-J and 2.0.1, built-in Type B RCD, IK10 impact rating. £1,086.

One is designed for a house. The other is designed for a car park and happens to fit on a house.

What the £437 buys — and what it doesn't

The CTEK's price reflects hardware that most home chargers leave out. A built-in MRCD Type B means your electrician doesn't need to fit a separate £100–£200 Type B RCD in the consumer unit. A MID-approved energy meter with Eichrecht compliance lets you bill per kWh if you rent out a parking space or reclaim business mileage with auditable data. OCPP 2.0.1 support and ISO 15118 plug-and-charge readiness are forward-looking protocols that matter in fleet and commercial settings.

For a household that just wants to charge a car overnight on Octopus Go or EDF GoElectric, none of that is load-bearing. The Simpson & Partners handles scheduled charging through its own app, integrates directly with Intelligent Octopus Go, and does the same 7kW on single-phase that the CTEK does — for £437 less. The built-in Type B RCD is a genuine saving on the CTEK's install bill, but it doesn't close a £437 gap, especially when the CTEK's typical installation runs £900–£1,300 versus £400–£600 for the Simpson & Partners.

Total outlay tells the story plainly. Simpson & Partners: roughly £1,050–£1,250 installed. CTEK: roughly £1,986–£2,386. The CTEK can cost twice as much to get on a wall.

Smart tariffs: the Simpson & Partners wins outright

This is the clearest split. The Simpson & Partners Home 7 talks to Intelligent Octopus Go directly — the charger receives scheduling instructions, and your car charges in the cheapest half-hour slots without you touching anything. On fixed-window tariffs like Octopus Go or EDF GoElectric, the built-in timer does the job.

The CTEK has no first-party tariff integration at all. No Octopus, no OVO Charge Anytime, no native app scheduling. You route everything through a third-party OCPP back-end — Monta, typically — and hope it handles the tariff logic. That is a reasonable arrangement for a workplace with an energy manager. It is an unreasonable ask for someone who just wants cheap overnight charging.

If tariff optimisation matters to you — and it should, because the difference between peak and off-peak can be 30p/kWh — the Simpson & Partners is the better charger. Full stop.

When the CTEK earns its keep

Three-phase homes with a specific need. If you have a three-phase supply and want 22kW charging with auditable, MID-metered energy data — because you bill tenants, or you expense business miles, or you plan to add a second outlet on the same NANOGRID load-balancing system — the CTEK is built for that role. Its IK10 impact rating and -30°C to +50°C operating range suggest it will outlast most things bolted to a wall. The five-year warranty is shorter than the Simpson & Partners' ten-year enclosure cover, but it wraps the entire unit, electronics included, whereas the Simpson & Partners covers electronics for only three years.

The Zaptec Go 2 at £638 is the more natural domestic three-phase alternative — lighter, cheaper, and with better app integration. If you need OCPP and MID metering specifically, the CTEK is the only home-rated unit offering both. That is a narrow audience, but a real one.

The verdict

Buy the Simpson & Partners Home 7 if:

• You have a single-phase supply and want a well-built 7kW charger with smart-tariff scheduling
• You value a 10-year enclosure warranty and UK-made build quality
• You want the lowest total installed cost — unit plus labour — without sacrificing premium materials

Buy the CTEK Chargestorm Connected 3 if:

• You have three-phase power and need MID-approved metering for billing or expense claims
• You require OCPP 1.6-J or 2.0.1 for integration with a commercial back-end
• You want built-in Type B RCD protection and don't mind third-party scheduling

For the overwhelming majority of UK driveways — single-phase, one car, a smart tariff — the Simpson & Partners Home 7 is the right charger here. It costs £437 less, schedules intelligently on its own, and comes wrapped in anodised aluminium with a decade of enclosure warranty behind it. The CTEK is a fine piece of engineering aimed at a problem most homes do not have. If readers care more about smart-tariff depth than three-phase metering, the Ohme Home Pro vs Simpson & Partners Home 7 comparison is the more useful page.