myenergi zappi Review: The Solar Charger That Also Does Cheap Tariffs
The zappi made its name by putting spare solar into your car rather than sending it back to the grid for pennies. It now also works with Intelligent Octopus Go, so it is no longer just for houses with panels. The hardware is still big and still not cheap, and one owner’s unit failed sixteen days after the three-year warranty ran out. Here is what the evidence says, and what you will actually pay to have one fitted.
Where the reviews line up
The evidence comes from three places: a hands-on test by Trusted Reviews on a house with 5.3 kW of solar panels, owners and trades on the self-build forum BuildHub, and 6,460 reviews of myenergi as a company on Trustpilot, with a small block of verified-buyer ratings at the installer Eco Wizard alongside. On the main point, they agree.
The solar side works. Trusted Reviews says the system “works excellently in practice”. Eco mode charges from 1.4 kW and tops up from the grid. Eco+ waits for surplus solar. On days when cloud keeps passing, Eco+ can stop and start, and lowering the minimum green level or adding delays sorts that out. The app is good, and the reviewer praises its energy charts. Setting it up is where people struggle: Wi-Fi pairing and tariff timers are the most common complaint from buyers, at Eco Wizard and on Trustpilot alike.
There are two honest caveats. Reliability past year three is a real question. On BuildHub, an owner’s unit failed with an “output failure” error sixteen days after its warranty expired, and another owner found a stuck relay causing the same error. myenergi sells a two-year extension for £120, and on this evidence it is worth considering. And Trustpilot’s 4.1 is about the company, not the charger. Its one-star pile (13%) is mostly about waits for support.
The buying decision is about your house, not the charger. If you have solar panels, or are about to fit them, the zappi is the obvious choice and you do not need a hub or a harvi in most installs. If you have no panels, it is a good smart charger on Intelligent Octopus Go, but you are paying a premium for solar features you will not use.
The three reviews this summary is built from
- Trusted ReviewsEditorial test of the white, tethered, single-phase zappi on a home with 5.3 kW of solar and an eddi.
- BuildHubSelf-build forum. One 8-post thread, December 2025 to February 2026, on a zappi that failed just after warranty.
- Trustpilot & Eco Wizardmyenergi 4.1/5 from 6,460 company reviews; the zappi 7kW tethered 4.1/5 from 11 Feefo buyer reviews at Eco Wizard.
Before the review: which zappi?
myenergi now sells two zappis. The one reviewed here is the standard zappi, the version with a screen and buttons. Retailers list it as the zappi 2.1 (model codes such as ZAPPI-2H07TW-G for white tethered and ZAPPI-2H07TB-G for black tethered). myenergi’s own page just calls it “the latest version of our award-winning zappi”. In June 2025 myenergi launched the zappi GLO, a 7 kW unit with no screen that you control from the app. It sits alongside the zappi 2.1 rather than replacing it. Check which one a quote is for.
Specification at a glance
| Spec | Figure | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Power | 7 kW single-phase (7.4 kW max); a 22 kW three-phase version also exists | myenergi product page |
| Charging current | 6 A to 32 A; Trusted Reviews puts the Eco minimum at 1.4 kW | myenergi zappi v2.1 datasheet; Trusted Reviews |
| Tethered or socket | Both. Tethered has a Type 2 cable; untethered has a socket for your car’s own cable | myenergi; Trusted Reviews |
| Tethered cable length | 6.5 m (datasheet, Eco Wizard, Electrifying). Trusted Reviews says 5 m | Sources disagree; the maker’s datasheet says 6.5 m |
| Modes | Eco (follows solar, tops up from grid) · Eco+ (pauses until surplus is available) · Fast (full power) | myenergi datasheet |
| Hub / harvi | No hub needed (built-in Wi-Fi and Ethernet). harvi is an optional wireless sensor for when a CT clamp cable cannot be run | myenergi page; Trusted Reviews |
| Earthing | PEN fault protection built in; “no earth rod required” | myenergi product page |
| RCD | Integral 30 mA Type A with 6 mA DC detection; local rules may still require a separate RCD | myenergi datasheet |
| Smart tariffs | Intelligent Octopus Go supported (Eco+ integration, firmware V3 or later, beta); Octopus Agile via Budget Charge | myenergi support article; Trusted Reviews |
| Size and rating | 439 × 282 × 122 mm; IP65; −25°C to +40°C | myenergi datasheet |
| Standby power | 3 W, roughly 26 kWh a year, about £6.92 at the 26.32p Ofgem cap (our sum) | Datasheet figure; the cost is our calculation |
| Warranty | 3 years standard; extend to 5 years for £120 | myenergi warranty pages |
| Price (unit only) | From £779 at myenergi (range £779–£865); £629.39 at Eco Wizard | Checked 12 October 2026 |
| Fitted price | About £1,103–£1,128 at Eco Wizard (unit plus £474–£499 standard install) | Our sum of two Eco Wizard prices, 12 October 2026 |
Trusted Reviews
Who they are: Trusted Reviews is a UK tech and home review site whose editors use each product and pair that with industry-standard tests in equipped facilities; it says manufacturers don’t vet its reviews and it never takes money to test, so it is a strong hands-on source. The page shows no byline, so we cannot tell you who did this test.
The test is useful because the reviewer had the setup the zappi is designed for: solar on the roof, CT clamps on the grid feed and on the solar output, and a myenergi hot-water diverter on the same system. The verdict is that it “works excellently in practice”. The review sets out the two solar modes clearly. Eco never drops below 1.4 kW, so it will draw from the grid to cover any shortfall, and it ramps up when there is more spare solar. Eco+ charges only when solar output reaches the minimum green level you set. At 100%, that means it waits for more than 1.4 kW of surplus.
The reviewer prefers Eco+, but notes that on bright, broken-cloud days it stop-starts. Lowering the minimum green level or adding start and stop delays helps. For tariffs, Octopus Agile works through a Budget Charge set up on myenergi’s website, not in the app. Automated charges can start or finish up to ten minutes late, so a short cheap slot may be partly missed. The app is called powerful and reasonably easy to use. The one complaint is that you cannot pick a specific week or month to compare. Listed cons: it does not support vehicle-to-grid, it is not small, and cheaper chargers exist. The review also gives the tethered cable as 5 m, while the maker’s datasheet says 6.5 m, which suggests an older unit or an error.
Watch: An Honest Look at the myenergi zappi
A rounded look at the zappi and the closest video match for an editorial-style review. We could not confirm from the listing which hardware version it shows.
Watch on YouTube ↗ Independent YouTube video — not made by or for Shopbam.BuildHub
Who they are: BuildHub is a UK self-build and renovation forum set up in 2016 by a group of experienced self-builders, trade experts and former moderators of a closed forum, run “by the members and for the members”; posts are unverified owner experience, so one thread is a warning sign, not a failure rate.
Editorial tests run for weeks. This thread covers what happens years later. The original poster’s zappi showed an “output failure” error sixteen days after its three-year warranty ended. Their installer had seen the fault before and said it was not easy or economical to repair. A second member had the same error on an out-of-warranty unit and traced it to a single stuck relay, which they replaced with an identical part costing about £20. They are clear that this is a job only for someone comfortable with a multimeter, soldering and safe working on mains electrics.
The ending is better than the start. myenergi first offered a refurbished unit for £349 plus VAT as a “goodwill gesture”. After accepting that the fault was almost certainly a relay that had probably been failing intermittently before the warranty expired, it replaced the unit free with a refurbished latest-version zappi, and the original installer fitted it for a modest fee. Another member warned against replacing like for like without knowing why the first one failed. That is fair, but nobody in the thread named a more reliable alternative. Our takeaway: the £120 extension to five years is the cheapest insurance on this page.
Watch: We have a Zappi! Showing charge point installation, how to use Zappi, and getting cheap charging
An owner’s film by Andrew Till of the Mr. EV site, from April 2025, covering installation and day-to-day use, which is the owner view to set beside the forum thread.
Watch on YouTube ↗ Independent YouTube video — not made by or for Shopbam.Trustpilot and Eco Wizard
Who they are: Trustpilot is an open review platform where anyone can review a business about a genuine experience, invited or unprompted, so read it for service rather than for the product; Eco Wizard is a UK EV charger retailer and installer whose ratings are collected by Feefo, which only invites customers with proof of purchase, so its 11 reviews are verified but few.
Treat the Trustpilot score as a verdict on myenergi the company. It invites reviews, replies to 98% of negative ones within about a week, and says it may use AI to help draft replies. About 4,500 of the 6,460 reviews came in the last twelve months. The positives are mostly about installers: tidy, punctual and skilled. The negatives fall into a pattern. Several recent reviewers in September 2026 found setup hard, with expected on-screen prompts not appearing and the WPS option for joining the router missing. Another could not get the app timer working for off-peak charging. Two others reported phone waits of 20 to 30 minutes, and one said a warranty replacement was slow.
Eco Wizard’s eleven verified buyers tell the same story at product level. One says linking to Wi-Fi was “quite fiddly” but that commissioning was easy afterwards. Another calls the setup “a nightmare”. A third says it linked to their car and Octopus account “very easily”. So the hardware is rarely the complaint. Getting it online and onto a tariff is the part most likely to cost you an evening. Ask your installer to finish that job before they leave.
Watch: MyEnergi Zappi EV Charger - Unboxing, Installation, Setup and Configuration
Covers the setup and configuration stage that buyers most often struggle with. We could not confirm from the listing which hardware version is shown.
Watch on YouTube ↗ Independent YouTube video — not made by or for Shopbam.Strengths and weak points
What holds up
- The solar diversion works, according to a tester with 5.3 kW of panels: Eco tops up from the grid, Eco+ waits for free power.
- Works with Intelligent Octopus Go through its own integration, so solar diversion stays on while Octopus schedules the cheap hours.
- PEN fault protection built in, so no earth rod is needed, which keeps installation simpler.
- No hub needed for smart control; harvi is only for awkward CT cable runs.
- A good app with clear energy charts.
- Long 6.5 m tethered cable (by the maker’s figure) and IP65 for outdoor walls.
- Warranty extendable to five years for £120.
What people complain about
- Setup: Wi-Fi pairing and tariff timers trip up a noticeable share of buyers.
- Support waits of 20 to 30 minutes by phone in recent Trustpilot reviews.
- An “output failure” relay fault reported just past the three-year warranty.
- Eco+ can stop and start on broken-cloud days until you adjust it.
- Large at 439 × 282 × 122 mm, and dearer than plain smart chargers.
- No vehicle-to-grid. The Intelligent Octopus Go integration is labelled beta.
Who it actually suits
Buy it if you have solar panels or a firm plan to fit them, you have off-street parking, and you want one box that will charge from the sun on good days and from Intelligent Octopus Go at night. If you already use a myenergi eddi or battery, it fits in with them. A house with solar is what the zappi was designed for, and the one hands-on test bears that out.
Look elsewhere if you have no solar and no plans for it. You would be paying roughly £780 for features you will not use, and a cheaper charger on the Octopus list will do the overnight job. The screenless zappi GLO is another option to price up. If you own a flat or rent, ask an OZEV-authorised installer about the government grant: it pays 75% of the cost up to £500 until 31 March 2027. People who own a house cannot claim it.
Running cost is down to your tariff, not the charger. As a guide, putting 40 kWh into a car at the 26.32p Ofgem cap costs about £10.53 (our sum). On a night-rate EV tariff, or on free solar, it costs much less.
What we could not check
- The videos. All three were confirmed by search listings, not by opening them, because YouTube does not load from our research tools. For two of them we could not see which zappi hardware version is shown.
- Who wrote the Trusted Reviews test, when, and its star score. None of these appeared on the page as we could read it, and its 5 m cable figure conflicts with myenergi’s 6.5 m.
- A product-level rating with a large sample. The 6,460 Trustpilot reviews are about the company. The only zappi-specific verified block we found has 11 reviews.
- Reliability rates. One forum thread with two owners reporting the same relay fault is a warning, not a failure rate. We found no published failure data.
- A typical fitted price across the market. We have one installer’s package (Eco Wizard, about £1,103–£1,128). Prices depend on cable run, consumer unit and whether a separate RCD or surge protection device is needed.
- Other retailer prices. The trade listings we checked (Yesss Electrical, BEW Direct) hide prices or say “call for price”, and Rapid Online lists the zappi 2.1 as no longer stocked. So we have the maker’s price and one installer’s price only.
- Weight. The datasheet we read does not give one.
- Speak EV and Reddit r/electricvehiclesUK. Our searches did not return a zappi thread from either that we could open and count, so neither is used here.
- Intelligent Octopus Go rates. Octopus sets these and they change, so we have not quoted one.
Sources last checked 12 October 2026. Prices, tariffs and grant terms change, so check them against your installer’s quote before ordering.