Simpson & Partners Home 7 vs Ohme ePod: build quality or brains?

The £240 that buys you a warranty, not a brain

These two rarely end up on the same shortlist, which is exactly why the comparison is useful. The Ohme ePod is £409 of smart-tariff engineering in a 1.48 kg shell. The Simpson & Partners Home 7 is £649 of anodised aluminium with a ten-year enclosure warranty and a three-phase option. One is a piece of software wearing a charger; the other is a piece of hardware you'd happily mount by the front door.

The shortest version:

• Simpson & Partners Home 7 — British-built, design-led, three-phase capable. Pay the £240 premium for the hardware, not the app.
• Ohme ePod — the smartest untethered charger on the UK market, Home Pro brain, pocket-sized body. Buy a cable separately.

What the £240 actually pays for

It does not pay for smarter charging. The ePod runs the same tariff API as the Ohme Home Pro, with direct plumbing into Octopus Intelligent Go, OVO Charge Anytime and others. The Simpson & Partners app supports Octopus Go, OVO Charge Anytime and EDF GoElectric via scheduling — competent, but not in the same class of integration.

What £240 does pay for, concretely: a ten-year warranty on the enclosure (three years on the electronics — read that line carefully), UK manufacture, anodised aluminium construction, finish options including Accoya wood and Cotswolds Green, and a 22kW three-phase variant at a price most competitors don't offer. If your house is three-phase and you want to use it, the Home 7 is the cheaper path than a Zaptec Go 2 or myenergi Zappi GLO. If it isn't, that advantage evaporates.

There's also the question of what the Home 7 looks like on the wall. It looks considered. The ePod looks like a smoke alarm. For a side return or a garage, that doesn't matter. For a visible front elevation on a Georgian terrace, it does.

Where the ePod's shape wins

The ePod's case for existence isn't price — it's geometry and connectivity. At 230 × 140 × 100mm and 1.48 kg, it mounts where nothing else does: narrow pier walls, behind drainpipes, inside tight porches. The built-in 4G SIM means it works where household Wi-Fi doesn't, which is a surprising number of detached garages.

Being untethered, the cable lives in your boot and comes with you. For anyone who uses destination chargers regularly and resents buying a second cable, that's a real saving. The trade: you'll pay £100–£200 for the cable itself, which narrows the headline £240 gap to something nearer £60–£140 by the time both chargers are actually usable. On Octopus Intelligent Go at 7p/kWh, the ePod's half-hourly optimisation will claw that back within a year for most drivers.

What the ePod doesn't have: a display, Wi-Fi as a backup, three-phase support, or any pretence at aesthetic presence. If you need any of those, the conversation ends here.

The solar and warranty question

Both offer solar integration — the Home 7 through its app, the ePod via a CT clamp with Solar Boost and Solar Only modes. Neither is a proper diverter in the Zappi GLO sense. Solar-first buyers should read the Ohme ePod vs Zappi GLO or Simpson & Partners Home 7 vs Zappi GLO comparisons before committing here.

On warranty: the Home 7's ten-year figure covers the enclosure only. The electronics — the bit most likely to fail — carry three years, the same as the ePod. The headline is generous; the small print is ordinary. Worth knowing before you let it sway the decision.

The verdict

Buy the Simpson & Partners Home 7 if you:

• Have a three-phase supply and want 22kW without paying Andersen money
• Want UK-manufactured hardware in a finish you'd be happy to look at daily
• Can confirm a local installer is familiar with the brand

Buy the Ohme ePod if you:

• Run Octopus Intelligent Go or OVO Charge Anytime and want the sharpest tariff integration going
• Have awkward mounting space or no Wi-Fi reach at the wall
• Prefer an untethered setup and already own or will buy a Type 2 cable

For most single-phase UK homes on a smart tariff, the ePod is the quieter, cheaper, cleverer buy — and the £240 saved is a cable plus most of an install. The Home 7 earns its premium in two specific houses: the three-phase one, and the one where the charger has to look like part of the architecture. Neither is the majority case. If the badge and the brick matter, pay the £240. If they don't, don't.

Renters and flat-owners: the £500 OZEV grant covers the ePod's £409 unit price outright and contributes to the install, which makes the decision easier still.