Simpson & Partners Home 7 vs EVEC VEC03

£300 between them — and most of it is longevity

The Simpson & Partners Home 7 costs £649. The EVEC VEC03 costs £349. That £300 gap is wide enough to feel like a different category — and in many respects, it is. One is a UK-manufactured, anodised aluminium unit with a 10-year enclosure warranty and active smart tariff hooks. The other is discontinued stock: the cheapest OZEV-approved smart charger still on shelves, with built-in protection hardware that trims your install bill, but software that has never quite kept pace.

• Simpson & Partners Home 7 — premium build, 10-year enclosure warranty, smart tariff scheduling, tethered or untethered. £649.
• EVEC VEC03 — budget entry, built-in RCD and PEN fault protection, OCPP 1.6J, run-out stock. £349.

The VEC03's real advantage is inside the box — not on the app

At £349, the VEC03 undercuts almost everything in the catalogue. Its trump card is not the price alone but what it ships with: a Type A RCD with 6 mA DC leakage detection and PEN fault protection, all built in. Most chargers require the installer to add these components to your consumer unit, typically adding around £100 to the labour bill. The VEC03 absorbs that cost at the factory, so the total installed price can land well under £700.

For grant-eligible renters and flat owners, the arithmetic is even kinder. The £500 OZEV grant covers the £349 unit outright and chips into the install costs too.

The trade-off is software. The VEC03 has no direct smart-tariff API — it is not on the Intelligent Octopus Go compatible list, and there is no hook into OVO Charge Anytime. You can set a timer for a fixed off-peak window like Octopus Go (00:30–05:30), but the app's reliability is the recurring customer complaint: scheduled charging has been reported as intermittent, and the charger depends entirely on your Wi-Fi — no 4G fallback. On a flat-rate tariff where you just need the car to start and stop at set times, that may be tolerable. On anything variable, it is not.

And the model is end-of-life. EVEC has replaced it with the vecGO 2.0, and what remains of the VEC03 is clearance inventory. Firmware updates and long-term cloud support for a superseded product carry an obvious question mark.

What the Simpson & Partners' £300 premium actually buys

Three things, in order of importance.

First, the warranty. Ten years on the enclosure is the longest in the UK market. The internal electronics carry a separate three-year warranty — a distinction worth knowing — but the housing itself, anodised aluminium in finishes including Accoya wood and Cotswolds Green, is covered for a decade. For a box that lives on an outside wall in British weather, that matters.

Second, tariff integration. The Simpson & Partners Home 7 works with Intelligent Octopus Go, scheduling the charger directly through the platform's API. On Octopus Go and EDF GoElectric, it runs on a timer — less clever, but functional. The VEC03 offers neither route.

Third, optionality. The Home 7 comes tethered or untethered, and supports 22kW three-phase if your supply allows it. The VEC03 is tethered only, single-phase only, 7.4kW. For the majority of UK homes on a single-phase supply, that second point is moot — but the untethered option is useful if you share the charger between vehicles with different connectors, or simply prefer a cleaner wall.

The app is not the Home 7's strongest suit. It works, but it is not as polished as the Ohme Home Pro or the Tesla ecosystem. If tariff optimisation is the priority — particularly on Octopus Agile, where rates shift every 30 minutes — the Ohme Home Pro at £539 is the sharper tool for that job. Buyers weighing the Simpson against the Ohme will find more on that specific angle in the Ohme Home Pro vs Simpson & Partners Home 7 comparison.

The verdict

Buy the Simpson & Partners Home 7 if:

• You want a charger that will outlast your current car — 10-year enclosure warranty, active production, ongoing support
• You use or plan to use Intelligent Octopus Go and need direct scheduling
• Kerb appeal matters — the finish options are a step above the usual black plastic slab

Buy the EVEC VEC03 if:

• You are on a flat-rate tariff and need the cheapest compliant install possible
• You qualify for the OZEV grant, which covers the £349 unit and contributes to install costs
• You accept the risk of buying a discontinued model with uncertain long-term software support

The VEC03 is the cheapest door into a smart, OZEV-approved charger. That is a legitimate reason to buy one, especially if the grant applies. But it is a product whose manufacturer has already moved on. The Simpson & Partners Home 7, at £300 more, is a charger built to stay on the wall for a decade — with the warranty to back it up. For most buyers spending their own money on a permanent installation, the Home 7 is the sounder choice.