Choosing a home EV charger

Tethered or socketed, which suits your parking?

A tethered charger has the cable permanently attached. A socketed charger has a Type 2 socket and you plug in the lead that came with the car, the ACT Government notes that “charging cables are typically provided when you purchase an EV”.

Tethered suits one car in a fixed spot: the lead is always there and nobody leaves it in the boot. Documented lead lengths run from 5 m on the Ocular IQ Home and the Wallbox Pulsar Plus to 7.3 m on the Tesla Wall Connector, and that number decides where the unit can go, because the lead has to reach the car’s port without crossing a path or lying in water.

Socketed suits two cars with different leads, a carport where a hanging cable is a nuisance, or an owner who would rather replace a damaged lead than a whole charger. Some units are socket-only: the Fronius Wattpilot Home is a Type 2 socket with a mechanical lock, and the Zaptec Go 2 is a Type 2 socket with an electronic lock. The myenergi zappi and the Ocular IQ Home are sold both ways.

Source: ACT Government, “Charging an electric vehicle”; manufacturer documentation listed below. Checked 18 September 2026.

7 kW or 22 kW?

Almost always 7 kW at home. The Electric Vehicle Council puts the market plainly: “the most common sizes for domestic installations are 7.4kW single phase or 11kW three phase”. A 22 kW charger needs three phases at the property and a car whose on-board charger can actually accept 22 kW of AC, which most cannot.

Buying a three-phase-capable unit for a single-phase house is not wasted if three-phase is genuinely coming, because every unit listed below also runs on one phase at 32 A. The three-phase page works through how to tell what you have, what Evoenergy allows and what an upgrade involves.

Source: Electric Vehicle Council, “EV charging at home”. Checked 18 September 2026.

Which smart features actually matter?

Five, and only if you will use them. Each is described by what it actually does.

• Scheduling is a setting in the charger or its app that starts and stops the charge at set times, so the car fills inside whichever window your electricity plan makes cheapest.
• Solar matching is a mode that reads the point where your home meets the grid through a current transformer in the switchboard and varies the charge rate so surplus solar goes into the car instead of being exported. How much it can capture depends on the array and the season.
• Dynamic load management is a control that measures what the rest of the house is drawing and reduces the charger’s output so the total stays inside what the supply can carry. The ACT Government describes the same idea for buildings: it means chargers “do not add to the building’s peak electricity load”.
• OCPP, the Open Charge Point Protocol, is an open communication standard between a charger and a management system, which the Open Charge Alliance says “enables interoperability between any charge point and central system, regardless of vendor”. The Electric Vehicle Council recommends home buyers “consider choosing a product with OCPP 1.6J (or higher) communications capability”.
• An RFID or app lock is access control: the charger will not deliver power until an authorised card is presented or the session is started from the owner’s app or account.

Solar matching is the one to think hardest about, because it can only work with surplus to divert. The solar charging page sets out the minimum surplus a car will accept and what a Canberra winter does to it.

Source: ACT Government, “EV charging in multi-unit buildings”; Open Charge Alliance, “Open Charge Point Protocol”; Electric Vehicle Council, “EV charging at home”. Checked 18 September 2026.

Do home chargers need Wi-Fi?

Not to charge a car. A connection is what makes scheduling, solar matching, remote control and OCPP work, so it matters exactly as much as those features do to you.

What is documented varies more than people expect. Tesla’s Wall Connector manual lists 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi only, with no Ethernet. Fronius states WLAN only for the Wattpilot. The myenergi zappi has Wi-Fi and an Ethernet port. The Zaptec Go 2 adds 4G and Bluetooth, and the Delta AC Max Smart lists Ethernet, Wi-Fi and 4G.

What we check on the day. Garages and detached carports are exactly where 2.4 GHz signal falls over, so we test the signal at the mounting position before committing to a Wi-Fi-only unit. Where it is marginal the fix is a cabled connection or a charger with a mobile radio, decided before installation rather than after.

Source: Tesla, Wall Connector 3 install manual (AUS/NZ); Fronius Australia, Wattpilot technical data; myenergi, zappi v2.1 datasheet; Zaptec, Go 2 product sheet; NHP, Delta AC Max selection guide. Checked 18 September 2026.

Which chargers do we install in Canberra homes?

Every line below comes from the maker’s own documentation for the Australian market. Where a maker does not document something, solar diversion, an OCPP version, load management, we say so rather than assume it. This is not a ranking.

Tesla Wall Connector (Gen 3)

Tethered only, 7.3 m lead, Type 2 handle. The Australian and New Zealand install manual specifies current rather than kilowatts: any value from 6 to 32 A, on single-phase 230 V or three-phase 400 V. Whole-of-home limiting is documented as Dynamic Power Management, and up to six units can share one supply. IP55. The manual does not mention OCPP and documents no surplus-solar function, so we claim neither.

myenergi zappi (v2.1)

7 kW single-phase or 22 kW three-phase, 6–32 A, available tethered or as a Type 2 socket with a locking system. Three modes, ECO, ECO+ and FAST, continuously track on-site generation and household consumption, and CT clamps are supplied for dynamic load balancing. OCPP 1.6J from firmware V5.114 on v2.1 units with built-in Wi-Fi; earlier zappis do not support it. Wi-Fi and Ethernet. IP65. Sold in Australia by myenergi APAC.

Fronius Wattpilot (Home and Go)

Socketed: the Home 22 J is a Type 2 socket with a mechanical lock, and the Go is a transportable version of the same thing. 7.36 kW single-phase or 22 kW three-phase, 6–32 A, with “dynamic PV surplus charging 1.38–22 kW with automatic 1-/3-phase switching”. OCPP 1.6J. IP65. The Australian technical data lists WLAN as the only connectivity and states no dynamic load management, so we do not claim it.

Ocular IQ Home and IQ Home Solar

7.2 kW single-phase or 22 kW three-phase at 32 A, as a universal Type 2 socket or a 5 m tethered lead. Three modes: Fast, Solar Assist, which draws a minimum 6 A from the grid plus whatever solar is spare, and Solar Only, which needs at least 7 A of excess. CT clamps read household load every second and throttle charging to avoid an overload. OCPP 1.6J. Wi-Fi or Ethernet. IP55. An Australian brand, and Kia supplies Ocular units as genuine accessories.

Wallbox Pulsar Plus and Pulsar Pro

7.4 kW at 32 A single-phase, 11 kW at 16 A three-phase or 22 kW at 32 A three-phase, configurable down to 6 A. Pulsar Plus is tethered at 5 m, with 7 m optional; a socket version and the Pulsar Pro are also listed on the Australian site. Eco-Smart is the excess-solar feature, Power Boost the load limiter, and Power Sharing splits one supply between chargers. The Pulsar Plus Socket datasheet states OCPP 1.6j; the Pulsar Pro datasheet says only “OCPP” with no version. Worth knowing before you choose the features: Wallbox’s Australian page states that “solar charging is not compatible with multiple-charger installations and OCPP”.

Zaptec Go 2

Socketed only, a Type 2 socket with an electronic lock the owner can set permanently. 7.4 kW single-phase or 22 kW three-phase at 32 A, with 1-to-3-phase switching offered for solar optimisation, although the product sheet does not name a surplus-solar mode. OCPP 1.6J, natively on the device. 4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an RFID reader, plus an integrated MID-certified energy meter. IP54 and IK10. Distributed in Australia by SEVR.

Also seen in Canberra homes

The MG ChargeHub comes as a 7 kW single-phase or 11 kW three-phase tethered unit with a 5 m Type 2 lead, RFID, OCPP 1.6J and IP55, there is no 22 kW model. The Delta AC Max is 7.4 kW single-phase or 11 and 22 kW three-phase, tethered at 5 m on the Australian model codes, with RFID and, on the Smart version, Ethernet, Wi-Fi and 4G; its documentation states OCPP without naming a version. Car makers supply chargers too: Hyundai’s accessory catalogue lists a Wallbox Pulsar Plus, and Kia lists Ocular units.

Source: each manufacturer’s own datasheet, manual or Australian product page, and the Hyundai and Kia Australia accessory pages, all listed with dates below. Checked 18 September 2026.

Can we install a charger you bought yourself?

What we check first: the Australian compliance marking; that the unit’s rating suits the supply the property actually has; and that the maker’s instructions can be followed where you want it mounted. That last one matters more than it sounds , the Electric Vehicle Council is explicit that “installers are required to follow the manufacturers’ installation instructions”, and those instructions can set the cable size, the protection and the clearances for the job.

A fixed wall charger is electrical wiring work either way, so it is installed, tested and certified by a licensed electrician; the installation page sets out what that involves in the ACT. Send the model and a photo of the switchboard with your quote request and we will tell you whether it suits.

Source: Electric Vehicle Council, “EVSE Installation Guideline”, February 2024. Checked 18 September 2026.

How do you stop someone else using it?

Four ways, and the simplest needs no technology at all. For a charger on an open driveway, a carport or a shared parking area, the documented options are:

• An RFID card or tag. The Zaptec Go 2 carries a reader for ISO/IEC 14443 Type-A cards, the MG ChargeHub reads ISO/IEC 14443 A and B, and the Delta AC Max lists RFID and ISO 15118 authentication.
• The app or account. A connected charger will not start a session until the owner authorises it, which is the simplest control on a household unit.
• A locking socket. The Zaptec Go 2’s Type 2 socket can be permanently locked by the user, the Fronius Wattpilot Home’s socket has a mechanical lock, and the socket version of the zappi has a locking system. A locked socket also stops the lead walking off.
• A tethered unit behind a closed door. No card, no app, no setting to forget.

Where the charge has to be accounted for rather than just prevented, a duplex, a shared driveway, a tenant, choose a unit with a built-in energy meter, as the Zaptec Go 2 and the Wallbox Pulsar Pro document. The apartment and strata page covers metering where a charger runs off common property.

Source: Zaptec, MG, Delta, Fronius, myenergi and Wallbox product documentation, listed with dates below. Checked 18 September 2026.

Questions we get asked about choosing a charger