myenergi Zappi GLO vs Rolec EVO

The £243 question — when both chargers chase the sun

Two solar-diverting chargers, a considerable price gap, and a decision that hinges on what else sits on your wall.

The myenergi Zappi GLO costs £599. The Rolec EVO costs £356. Both offer Eco and Eco+ modes — the latter running your car from surplus solar alone. Both are OZEV-approved. Both are made in Britain. The £243 between them is not a small sum; it is roughly half the cost of a standard installation. Whether it buys you anything depends on one thing: the rest of your home energy system.

• myenergi Zappi GLO — the solar charger that belongs to an ecosystem. Worth the premium if you run (or will run) an eddi or libbi beside it.
• Rolec EVO — solar diverting at the lowest price on the market, with install savings baked in. The standalone choice.

What the Rolec EVO's price actually includes

The £356 figure looks modest. What sits behind it is not. The Rolec EVO ships with a CT clamp for solar monitoring, built-in PME/PEN fault detection, a Type A RCD, 6 mA DC protection, and surge protection. On most other chargers — the Zappi GLO included — your installer adds a separate PEN fault device or earth rod and an RCD board. That typically costs £100–£250 in parts and labour.

Run the numbers properly: £356 for the unit, minus install savings of £100–£250, against a £599 Zappi GLO that still needs those extras. The real gap between them is closer to £350–£500 once the electrician leaves. That is a significant spread for two chargers that perform the same core task — diverting surplus solar into your car.

The Rolec also carries a five-year warranty, two years longer than the Zappi GLO's three. For a product bolted to an outside wall, exposed to British weather for a decade, that matters.

When the Zappi GLO earns its keep

The myenergi ecosystem is the only honest justification for £599. If you heat water with an eddi — no, the point is simpler than that. If your home already prioritises solar surplus across multiple loads — hot water via the eddi diverter, home battery via the libbi — the Zappi GLO slots in as the third node, all managed through a single myenergi app. Surplus flows to whichever device needs it most, in whatever priority order you set. No other charger on the market does this as natively.

The Zappi GLO also offers a tethered option with a 6.5-metre Type 2 cable, RFID access for up to 126 users (useful for shared driveways or small workplaces), and a 22 kW three-phase mode for the fewer-than-5% of UK homes wired for it. These are real features — but they are niche features, and the Rolec EVO's untethered socket, two RFID cards, and 7.4 kW single-phase output will serve most households without fuss.

If you do not own an eddi or a libbi, and you do not share a driveway with a dozen neighbours, the Zappi GLO is an expensive solar diverter competing against a cheaper one that does the same job.

Smart tariffs — neither charger's strongest suit

Both chargers support scheduled charging and smart tariff integration, but neither matches the Ohme Home Pro for half-hourly rate-chasing on Octopus Agile. On a fixed off-peak tariff like Octopus Go — 8.5 p/kWh between 00:30 and 05:30 — either charger's built-in scheduler handles the job. Set it once, forget it.

For buyers whose priority is tariff optimisation rather than solar, this is the wrong comparison. The Ohme Home Pro vs Zappi GLO pairing addresses that question directly.

The app gap

The Rolec EVO's consumer app is newer and still receiving regular OTA updates. Early adopters report it is functional but not yet polished — scheduling works, energy monitoring works, solar modes work, but the interface lacks the maturity of myenergi's app, which has had years of iteration across two Zappi generations. If app refinement matters to you, the Zappi GLO is the more settled experience. If you can tolerate a product that improves quarterly, the Rolec's fundamentals are sound.

The Rolec compensates with connectivity: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, and an Ethernet port — a wired option neither the Zappi GLO nor most competitors offer. Neither charger has 4G cellular fallback, so both need a reliable Wi-Fi signal at the charger location.

Which to buy

Buy the myenergi Zappi GLO if:

• You already own or plan to buy a myenergi eddi or libbi — the ecosystem integration is the product
• You need a tethered cable and want it from the factory
• You need RFID access for a large number of users on a shared driveway

Buy the Rolec EVO if:

• You want surplus-solar charging at the lowest total cost — unit plus installation
• A five-year warranty matters more than ecosystem lock-in
• You are comfortable with an untethered socket and a still-maturing app

For most solar households without a myenergi ecosystem already in place, the Rolec EVO is the better buy. It does the same essential job for hundreds less, protects itself electrically without add-ons, and backs it with a longer warranty from a manufacturer with a decade in commercial EV charging. The £243 saved is better spent on an extra solar panel — which, in turn, gives both chargers more surplus to divert.