Ohme Home Review

The Ohme Home is Ohme’s entry-level smart home charger. It is Ohme’s first charger, released before the Pro model that captures most sales.

By Ohme’s own admission, the Ohme Home is nowhere near as popular, but it is still on sale, so we thought we’d take a look and see if it’s worth your dosh.

The headlines? It has the same smart technology and charging speeds as the Pro, but it has a different design and no in-built earthing (so it needs an earth rod).

The price difference between the Home and Pro is £50, a small saving, but a saving nonetheless. Our review reveals if the saving is worth it.

Price when reviewed: From £849 with installation (no OZEV).

Quick review

The Ohme Home is a good home charger, offering one of the best apps in the business and reliable performance. Unlike some other brands, Ohme has fantastic software and hardware, so the Home’s user experience is terrific.

The slender case is handy if you don’t want a charger that protrudes from the wall, although you still get protrusion from the holster.

The Ohme Home lacks the Pro’s in-built control panel, and it has a smaller, simpler LCD display, which makes it more difficult to read.

The Ohme Home has no in-built earthing, so it requires an earth rod. Alternatively, you could install a Garo or Matte:e earthing device, but this would add so much to the cost (around £130) that it doesn’t make economical sense.

Overall, the Ohme Home offers a slender design and epic reliability, backed by a fantastic app. But at only £50 less than the Pro, which has a better display, a control panel and built-in earthing, it’s difficult to recommend over the Pro.

Is the Ohme Home easy to install?

The Ohme Home Charger is rated at 32A and contains an integral RCD with Type A and DC (6mA) operating characteristics.

It has no in-built earthing, so it requires an earth rod (sold separately). Earth rods cost around £30. Additionally, the Ohme Home has no in-built overcurrent protection, which is fitted separately as part of the installation.

It comes with a CT Clamp, wago connectors and lightning junction box, so other than the earth rod, it comes with everything needed for installation.  

The earth connection needs to be TT and is always required for outdoor charging locations to create separate earth to the house earth.

As with all EV home chargers, the Ohme Home requires a dedicated circuit running from the consumer unit, and new circuits are notifiable under Part P of the Building Regulations. So, you can’t install it yourself unless you are qualified.

Overall, the Ohme Home is easy to install, taking around three hours minus the paperwork (much of which can be done in the van).

The downside to installation is the requirements for an earth rod. This isn’t a major problem, but it does mean the charger is technologically outdated, with nearly all new chargers today having in-built earthing as standard.

Ohme Home design

The Ohme Home looks like no other home charger with a remarkably thin body that sits flush against the wall.

It’s so thin (61mm, making it the slimmest charger on the market!) that the charger holster sticks out more than the charger itself, a quirk that could be remedied with an angled holster. The Ohme Home Pro also has this quirk.

The holster isn’t an elegant solution for holding the cable, but it gets the job done.

Other than that, it’s a decent looking unit. It’s only available in black and the thin construction guarantees that it blends in.

61mm is nothing for an EV charger, and it isn’t particularly wide either at 89mm. The length of 239mm only looks like a lot because it’s so slender.

The front of the charger houses a small LCD display that provides information on the charger’s status. The front also has LED indicator lights that make it easy to see the charger status at a glance (more on these below).

A 5m cable comes as standard and the build quality of the unit is excellent. There’s no play in the unit when pulling the cable at all.

Overall, the Ohme Home won’t win any style awards, but the slender body makes it unique and the in-built screen is a handy feature.

LED status lights

The front of the Ohme Home contains three LED status lights set into a circle. Left is yellow, right is red, and the bottom one is green.

The status lights are as follows:

• Solid green – Waiting, ready to connect to the car
• Flashing green – Connected to the car, not charging
• Red – Charging
• All lights lit – Smart charging
• Flashing yellow – Electrical Fault
• Yellow and green flashing with solid red – EV Fault

Screen

The LCD screen isn’t as advanced as the Pro’s, but it gets the job done, displaying quite a bit of static information. This includes:

• Amperage (e.g., 32A)
• Voltage
• Ambient temperature

It also uses icons to display the status. These can be confusing because there’s no explanation without using your smartphone. We’ve done the hard work for you though, so here’s what all the icons on the display mean:

Unlike the Pro, the Ohme Home doesn’t have a control panel. This is unfortunate because it makes life a lot easier.

Charging speed

The Ohme Home charges at 7.4kW on a 32A circuit or 3.6kW on a 16A circuit, making it up there with the fastest single-phase home chargers.

7.4kW chargers add up to 30-miles of range per hour, and easily top up a 75kWh battery from 0-100% overnight.

Connectivity

Ohme does things differently than most other EV charger brands. Instead of Wi-Fi, the Ohme Home has built-in 3G/4G with a three-year SIM included, with the charger connecting to Three, EE, O2 or Vodafone (whichever is strongest). After three years, you can replace the SIM with your own deal.

The downside to mobile connectivity is it requires a strong mobile signal for the smart features to work. Basically, without a reliable mobile signal, your smartphone won’t always communicate with the charger.

Thankfully, Ohme Home connectivity problems are rare. We have extensively tested the Ohme Home Pro, which has the same technology with no issues.

No solar support

The Ohme Home doesn’t have terminals for a solar feed, so if you want to charge your EV with solar panels, you need to look elsewhere.

A few good chargers with solar include the Hypervolt Home 2.0 and Zappi v2. The Rolec WallPod is also available with solar.

Load balancing is standard

The Ohme Home has load balancing via a CT clamp which is handy if you have a lower end fuse, such as 60A. Load balancing monitors the fuse and energy consumption, decreasing the rate of energy delivery to prevent overload.

Charging experience

Ohme has mastered the software experience for the Ohme Home, delivering a killer app that works perfectly every time.

Scheduled charging is the tip of the iceberg, with the ability to set the charger to turn on at certain times to make use of cheaper rates. You can set multiple charge schedules, and they never get missed. The reliability is excellent.

The best smart feature is the kWh price cap function, which lets you select a maximum kWh price so you always charge at the cheapest rate.

Additionally, there’s a Max Charge mode. Max Charge gives you access to the fastest charging speeds immediately, overriding any schedules. It’s activated in the Ohme App and it works well. Max Charge stops when you unplug.

Ohme App

I’ll go out of my way to say that Ohme has the best app of all EV charging brands. The reviews back it up. People dig it.

What’s good about it? The menus, settings, interface, graphics, colours, fonts, everything is well done. It’s clearly designed by people who own electric vehicles because it makes scheduling and controlling charging so easy.

Ohme are also great at adding useful requested features. For example, in January, they added a pre-conditioning feature that starts the charger 30 minutes before departure, just so you don’t have to pre-condition your vehicle manually.

Tesla, Hyundai and Kia drivers can also remotely start and stop climate control through the new Manage My EV section of the Ohme app.

The app gives you a full breakdown of charging sessions, including:

• Power graph
• Charge time
• Cost per mile
• Estimated total cost of charge
• Estimated total savings vs. standard tariff
• CO2 consumption
• Reduced CO2 vs ICE car (in kg) based on range

The app is fast and charging information is updated in real-time, providing you have a good mobile connection.

Ohme Home API

Like the Ohme Home Pro, the Ohme Home can connect to your vehicle’s API to access vehicle information. If your vehicle is supported by Ohme, it means you will have access to a lot more charging data on your smartphone.

Information like state of charge (SOC) and battery level are sourced from your car. This unlocks smart features like the ability to set your car to charge to 80% without telling the schedule to add a certain amount of energy. Without API, the smart features of the Ohme Home require a bit more manual input.

You can find out more about API support here. Ohme supports a wide range of OEMs, but not all, although they are committed to adding more.

Firmware updates

The Ohme Home has over-the-air updates, so no engineer is required. You push updates through the Ohme app. Updates take around half an hour, although it depends on the size of the update and the type of mobile signal available.

Customer support

Ohme responds to customer enquiries within 24-hours and generally has a good reputation for handling technical queries. The reviews online are mixed, however, with some customers complaining about receiving no response. Ultimately, if you have a problem, you can expect a response in a reasonable time.

Ohme Home verdict

Overall, the Ohme Home is a good home charger. It has the best app in the business and it’s the slimmest charger money can buy today.

If you want a slim charger, look no further.

The downside to the Ohme Home is the lack of in-built earthing, which renders it technically obsolete to the newer Ohme Home Pro and a little trickier to install. It also lacks the Pro’s in-built control panel, a feature that’s very useful.

At £50 less than the Pro, the Ohme Home offers a marginal saving over the Pro. It’s a good charger in its own right and the better option if you want something very slim. Otherwise, the Pro is superior for only a bit more money.

Overall, the Ohme Home achieves a solid 3.9/5.

Ohme Home alternatives

The Rolec WallPod is a good alternative to the Ohme Home, with a relatively compact design and a decent app.

The Wallbox Pulsar Plus is an even better alternative. Again, it has a decent app and a nice design with an LED status ring

The Ohme Home Pro is the best alternative if you like Ohme and the Ohme app. Overall, it’s one of the best charger’s we’ve tested.

The Pod Point Solo 3 is another good charger. It’s stylish and easy to use, with a simple but intuitive app that lets you set charging schedules and add tariff details (kWh prices) to track costs. Read our Pod Point Solo 3 review.

Ohme Home documentation

• Ohme Home product manual

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