Wallbox Pulsar Max vs EO Mini Pro 3: which compact charger wins?

Two small chargers, one obvious pick

Both units target the same buyer: someone with a wall that won't tolerate a kitchen-appliance-sized box beside the front door. The Wallbox Pulsar Max is £536. The EO Mini Pro 3 is £550. Fourteen pounds separates them on price, and that's about the only thing that's close.

• Wallbox Pulsar Max — compact, three-phase-capable, five-year warranty. The default choice of the two.
• EO Mini Pro 3 — the smallest proper charger sold in the UK, and the only one with Hive Power+ cashback if British Gas is your supplier.

Size: the EO's one clear win

If the decision is being made on millimetres, the EO takes it. At 215 × 140 × 100mm it's narrower than the Wallbox's 198 × 201mm face — an A5 sheet of paper with a bit of depth. On a pillar between a garage door and a window, or recessed into brickwork, 60mm of width matters.

The Wallbox isn't large by any normal standard — 198 × 201 × 99mm, 4.2kg, six colour options, IK10 impact rating. It's a compact charger. But it's not the compact charger, and if size is the problem you came here to solve, the EO is the answer.

Everywhere else, the picture reverses.

Where the Wallbox quietly wins

Warranty: five years against three. Power: 7.4kW against 7.2kW — marginal on paper, a real 200W on the cable. Three-phase: the Wallbox offers a 22kW option if your property supports it (most UK homes don't, but if yours does, the EO can't do the job). Voice control via Alexa and Google is thrown in; whether you want your charger shouting at you is a separate question.

What the EO has that the Wallbox doesn't: a CT clamp for solar in the box (the Wallbox wants its separate Power Meter, bought extra), an Ethernet port for wired network fallback, and an optional 4G module. Useful edge cases, but edge cases. The Wallbox's Power Boost — throttling the car when the house draws hard — is the more broadly relevant feature, particularly on older UK supplies where the main fuse can't cope with a kettle and 7.4kW at once.

Neither has a direct tariff API. Scheduling on both is manual, via their respective apps. On a simple fixed-window tariff like Octopus Go or EDF GoElectric, that's fine — you set the window once and forget it. On Octopus Agile, where rates move every half hour, both are out of their depth, and the Ohme Home Pro at £535 is the correct charger instead.

The Hive Power+ asterisk

There is one scenario where the EO is unambiguously the right buy, and it has nothing to do with size. British Gas sells a Hive Power+ version of the EO Mini Pro 3 which credits back 25% of charging costs to customers on the EV Power+ tariff. That's a structural discount no other charger offers. If you're a British Gas customer who intends to stay one, the EO earns its £14 premium within the first year and keeps earning it.

If you're on any other supplier — Octopus, OVO, EDF, E.ON, Scottish Power — the cashback doesn't apply, and the case for the EO collapses back to "is it small enough to justify losing two years of warranty".

The verdict

Buy the Wallbox Pulsar Max if:

• Your property has, or might have, three-phase supply
• You want the longer warranty — five years against three
• You're on a fixed-window tariff and want a solid, compact, well-built charger at £536

Buy the EO Mini Pro 3 if:

• The mounting space dictates the smallest possible unit
• You're a British Gas customer using Hive Power+ and the 25% cashback
• You need Ethernet or optional 4G for a location where Wi-Fi is unreliable

For most buyers, the Wallbox is the one to put on the wall. It costs less, charges slightly faster, carries a longer warranty, and keeps the three-phase door open. The EO is a specialist — brilliant in two specific scenarios, overpriced in all the others. If neither size nor Hive applies to you, and you only came here because both chargers looked compact, the Tesla Wall Connector at £478 does more than either for less money, and the Ohme Home Pro at £535 automates the tariff side both of these leave to you.