Great Smart Features for EV Chargers
Written by: Briain Kelly
Published: November 3, 2025
Last updated: November 2, 2025
Reading time: 3 mins
With electric vehicles becoming ever more common, having a good charger is an essential investment if you want to get the most out of your EV. While all chargers have the same ability to plug in and charge an EV, there are many other factors that can separate some EV chargers from the rest.
Here are some essential smart features that you should look for when purchasing a Home EV Charger.
Charging with Solar Power
One incredible feature for a home EV charger to have is integrated compatibility with solar panels. This means that your electric car can be charged directly from the electricity being made from your solar panels, bypassing the grid.
This is a great feature for especially environmentally conscious drivers, and those who want to further reduce the cost of charging.
Your charger might have multiple different operating modes for solar charging, depending on the brand and model.
Full Solar Charging: The charger will take priority for electricity being made by the solar panels, using everything they have.
Your Content Goes HereExcess Solar Charging: The EV charger will soak up any excess solar electricity that is not being used at the moment, but won’t hog the green energy. If no solar energy is available, the charge will wait until some excess becomes free.
Solar+ Charging: Your charger will prioritise speed, supplementing solar electricity with power from the grid. This kicks in when the solar panels don’t have enough output to charge at full capacity.
Charging & Access Controls
Basic EV charger usage is as simple as plug and go. But there are other ways to control the usage of, and access to, your EV charger.
These can be very useful for ensuring that you are getting the best value, making it easy to monitor remotely, and ensuring that only people with approval can use the charger.
RFID Control: This setup uses a contactless card or fob to start and end charging sessions. RFID controls allow an EV charger to be used by a larger number of people while still controlling access.
App Controls: For home EV chargers, you can control your charger directly from a dedicated app with almost all brands. This adds a whole range of options for different charging methods and monitoring the charger’s status.
Scheduled Charging: If you have an EV with a home charger, you might want to take advantage of cheaper electricity rates at night. But it would be a pain to have to go and plug your car in at 2am. Scheduled charging sessions allow you to plug the charger in, but not have the charging session begin until a specific time.
Dynamic Load Balancing
Dynamic Load Balancing adjusts the power supply going to an EV charger based on the overall demand and supply of electricity within the building grid at any given time.
This can be an extremely useful feature for homes with an EV charger or businesses with an EV Charging network.
With load balancing, your EV charger is monitoring how much power is being used in your home at all times, and will adjust its own draw to avoid overloading the power supply.
Say you have your electric car plugged in and charging at full power. Then, you put a load on in the washing machine, stick something in the oven, and flick on the kettle all at the same time.
When this happens, an EV charger with dynamic load balancing will reduce its power demand. This will slow down the speed of the charger, but reduce the risk of an electrical overload. When the power demand in your house drops, the charger will increase in strength once again.
Dynamic Load Management is very useful in an EV charger, since it makes it less likely you will need to upgrade your electrical panel to get a home charger installed.
Bidirectional Charging
With a standard EV charger, power flows in one direction, from your home to your car battery via the charger. With bidirectional charging, this works both ways. You can send power from your EV’s battery to your home via the charger.
Bidirectional Charging can operate in one of three ways:
Vehicle to Load (V2L): This is the simplest example of bidirectional charging, and doesn’t need a charger at all. With the right adapter, appliances and tools can use the EV battery as a direct power source.
Vehicle to Grid (V2G): Power from the EV battery is exported directly back into the grid via the charger. This can allow EV owners to charge their battery cheaply with discounted night rates, then export that power later for a profit.
Vehicle to Home (V2H): This would allow an EV to be used as a large battery source to power your home. Something which could come in especially useful in a power outage. This requires a compatible vehicle, many of which do not support V2H charging, as well as a bidirectional charger.
This is still a very rare feature in home EV chargers, but it will likely become more common in the future due to its utility.
Great Smart Features for EV Chargers
Published: November 3, 2025
Last updated: November 2, 2025
Written by: Briain Kelly
Reading time: 3mins
With electric vehicles becoming ever more common, having a good charger is an essential investment if you want to get the most out of your EV. While all chargers have the same ability to plug in and charge an EV, there are many other factors that can separate some EV chargers from the rest.
Here are some essential smart features that you should look for when purchasing a Home EV Charger.
Charging with Solar Power
One incredible feature for a home EV charger to have is integrated compatibility with solar panels. This means that your electric car can be charged directly from the electricity being made from your solar panels, bypassing the grid.
This is a great feature for especially environmentally conscious drivers, and those who want to further reduce the cost of charging.
Your charger might have multiple different operating modes for solar charging, depending on the brand and model.
Full Solar Charging: The charger will take priority for electricity being made by the solar panels, using everything they have.
Your Content Goes HereExcess Solar Charging: The EV charger will soak up any excess solar electricity that is not being used at the moment, but won’t hog the green energy. If no solar energy is available, the charge will wait until some excess becomes free.
Solar+ Charging: Your charger will prioritise speed, supplementing solar electricity with power from the grid. This kicks in when the solar panels don’t have enough output to charge at full capacity.
Charging & Access Controls
Basic EV charger usage is as simple as plug and go. But there are other ways to control the usage of, and access to, your EV charger.
These can be very useful for ensuring that you are getting the best value, making it easy to monitor remotely, and ensuring that only people with approval can use the charger.
RFID Control: This setup uses a contactless card or fob to start and end charging sessions. RFID controls allow an EV charger to be used by a larger number of people while still controlling access.
App Controls: For home EV chargers, you can control your charger directly from a dedicated app with almost all brands. This adds a whole range of options for different charging methods and monitoring the charger’s status.
Scheduled Charging: If you have an EV with a home charger, you might want to take advantage of cheaper electricity rates at night. But it would be a pain to have to go and plug your car in at 2am. Scheduled charging sessions allow you to plug the charger in, but not have the charging session begin until a specific time.
Dynamic Load Balancing
Dynamic Load Balancing adjusts the power supply going to an EV charger based on the overall demand and supply of electricity within the building grid at any given time.
This can be an extremely useful feature for homes with an EV charger or businesses with an EV Charging network.
With load balancing, your EV charger is monitoring how much power is being used in your home at all times, and will adjust its own draw to avoid overloading the power supply.
Say you have your electric car plugged in and charging at full power. Then, you put a load on in the washing machine, stick something in the oven, and flick on the kettle all at the same time.
When this happens, an EV charger with dynamic load balancing will reduce its power demand. This will slow down the speed of the charger, but reduce the risk of an electrical overload. When the power demand in your house drops, the charger will increase in strength once again.
Dynamic Load Management is very useful in an EV charger, since it makes it less likely you will need to upgrade your electrical panel to get a home charger installed.
Bidirectional Charging
With a standard EV charger, power flows in one direction, from your home to your car battery via the charger. With bidirectional charging, this works both ways. You can send power from your EV’s battery to your home via the charger.
Bidirectional Charging can operate in one of three ways:
Vehicle to Load (V2L): This is the simplest example of bidirectional charging, and doesn’t need a charger at all. With the right adapter, appliances and tools can use the EV battery as a direct power source.
Vehicle to Grid (V2G): Power from the EV battery is exported directly back into the grid via the charger. This can allow EV owners to charge their battery cheaply with discounted night rates, then export that power later for a profit.
Vehicle to Home (V2H): This would allow an EV to be used as a large battery source to power your home. Something which could come in especially useful in a power outage. This requires a compatible vehicle, many of which do not support V2H charging, as well as a bidirectional charger.
This is still a very rare feature in home EV chargers, but it will likely become more common in the future due to its utility.
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