Tested: Andersen Quartz home charger

• 7kW or 11kW output
• Tethered or untethered options
• Tethered cable length up to 8.5m
• 7-year warranty
• from £695 (unit only) to £1,105 (installed)

What is it? 

The Quartz is Andersen’s latest home charging unit and is designed to deliver the brand’s trademark design ethos and quality at a lower price than its acclaimed A2 and A3 units.

The new Quartz has a lot to live up to. The A3 and A2 have won a number of industry awards for design and quality and is seen as the ‘go-to’ charger for drivers who place aesthetics at the top of their priorities. 

The new unit is available as either a socketed unit - a first for an Andersen product - so customers can use their own cable, or with a tethered cable. It can also be specified as 7kW single-phase or 22kW three-phase if you’re lucky enough to have a three-phase supply. You can also choose the length of the cable, which is a clever touch. The brand offers an 8.5 meter option for additional £99, which is one of the longest we’ve come across. 

The Quartz does without the brand’s trademark hidden cables, which makes it 34% shorter and 45% narrower than Andersen’s previous smallest unit. But like the A2 and A3 units, you still have the option to personalise your Quartz to suit your preferences - which is really handy if you don’t want a cheap black box bolted to the front of your house.

You can choose from a palette of more than 100 colour combinations for the fascia and body. There is also the option of an Accoya wood or carbon front facia trim if you’re feeling really fancy. The new unit can all be controlled through the Andersen app or via an optional display screen. 

According to Andersen, quality and sustainability have been considered all the way through the design and manufacturing process. More than 70% of the components built into the new unit are manufactured in the UK, helping to cut down on the ‘air miles’ involved in production. 

The Andersen Quartz costs from £695 depending on the finish chosen, or fully installed from £1,105 using Andersen’s in-house team of electricians. The unit is protected by a market-leading 7-year warranty.

What’s it like to use?

To fully test the new Andersen Quartz home charger, I’ve had one installed using Andersen’s own installation service. I’ll be using it to charge various EVs both in my household and on the electrifying.com fleet. 

Installation

Andersen prides itself on its service, and having experienced it first-hand, it has every right to. Yes, there are cheaper home chargers on the market, but very few, if any, come with their own dedicated installation teams. When my previous unit was installed six years ago, the supplier sub-contracted the installation to local electrician. He did a decent job, but had never fitted my particular charge point before and just told me to read the manual if I wanted to know how it worked. He also told me that electric cars were a flash in the pan and didn’t know why I’d wasted my money buying one. 

This time, thankfully, it was different. After choosing my colours (I went with Cashmere and Sherwood Green to match the brickwork and rampant weeds at the front of my house), I was contacted by the Andersen team to agree an installation date. At this stage, Andersen's team asked for some pictures of the property to ensure that there are no nasty surprises for the installer. It's all straightforward stuff and the instructions are all clear. 

On installation day, Andy, my local installer, arrived in a fully-liveried MG5 to get my Quartz up and running. Impressively, he called the night before to give me an ETA and also when he was 20 minutes away. Try getting that level of communication from your local sparky. 

Because I had an existing unit, I had rather hoped that the install would be a case of bolting the Quartz to the wall and wiring it up. Turns out the installer who fitted my original unit hadn’t done quite the perfect job, so Andy had to run new cable from the charger to the main consumer unit (fuse box) and fit a new circuit breaker with overload protection. It meant that, in effect, I received a completely new installation. At least I know everything is fit for purpose now. Andy also ran a new connection called an Adaptive Fuse between the charger and the mains input supply. This offers an extra layer of protection and means that the charger can monitor how much power the rest of the house electrics are drawing. Should there be a situation where too much energy is being drawn, it can power down the charger to prevent the main fuse blowing. Clever stuff.  

After testing and checking with Andersen HQ that everything was working as it should, Andy was done and the Quartz was ready to use. Andy steered me through the app, which is pleasingly simple and intuitive to navigate, and asked me to try it out before signing off. After a heart-stopping moment when my ID.Buzz refused to charge (I’d forgotten to turn off scheduled charging), the job was complete. 

What is the Andersen Quartz like to use?

Firstly, it looks great. I hated the appearance of my old charger (I even painted it to try and lessen its plasticky awfulness), so the cream and green combination of my Quartz is a huge improvement. I was also pleasantly surprised by the quality. The painted centre panel is metal and the fit and finish of the casing is first class. 

I opted for the longest 8.5 metre cable, which is brilliant because it means I can charge all three EVs on my driveway without having to move everything around. Yes, it’s a lot of cable to wind up and hang on the cable holder, but given the convenience of not having to shuffle cars around like an airport valet parking lot, it’s a price worth paying. 

Scheduling timed charging sessions via the app is simple. You can add the unit costs of your electricity to give an accurate figure of how much a charging session has cost. There’s also a Boost button at the base of the unit which overrides any schedule you have active. That’s a really useful function if you need to instantly add charge and can’t be bothered with having to alter settings within the app.

I’ve had the Quartz running for just under a month now and it’s been 100% reliable. Scheduled charges have worked perfectly to the point that I've forgotten that it’s there. My previous charger was a constant source of trouble as it entered its death throes, so to have a unit that just gets on with its job (and looks good into the bargain) is a very good thing. It’s also comforting to know that the Quartz (like the A2 and A3) comes with a seven year warranty, should any issues arise. 

​Available from: https://andersen-ev.com/
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