EVIQO Level 2 EV Charger - 48 Amp EV Charger Level 2-240V Electric Vehicle Charging Stations - Smart Wall EV Chargers for Home Level 2 - NEMA 14-50/Hardwired - 11.5kW EVSE J1772, Energy Star/UL

I own a Chevrolet Bolt 2019 model. When I bought this car, initially, I used the standard Level 1 charger that was supplied with the car. Since the performance of this charger was unsatisfactory, in October 2019, I bought a JuiceBox 40 Smart EV charging station (Level 2) with Wi-Fi. It turned out to be anything but "smart" but that would be a different story/review.On January 3, 2024, when I walked out into the garage, JuiceBox welcomed me with beeping noises. After a little bit of diagnostics myself, I called ENEL (manufacturer) customer service. Here, I would like to state that ENEL customer service is among the best. The customer service representative had me repeat a few of the diagnostic steps and declared the unit dead. The device used a mechanical relay which had a known issue. Since I was among their earliest customers and the unit had a known issue, I was offered a replacement newer model at $100 discount. Don't ask me why I was never informed of the "known" issue and a replacement sent to me when the "issue" was discovered! In any case, it was a complicated process (digging up old receipts, ENEL back-end system failures, etc.) but a replacement was ordered the same day (01/03/2024). Given my situation, I was promised a priority overnight shipment. Lo and behold, it is 01/09/2024, there is still no sign of a replacement. Every time I called, I was told the replacement was ready for shipment and waiting for the "carrier" to pick it up! Great customer service can go only so far if the rest of the company functions are not supportive enough. I knew it was time to look for an alternative and canceled my JuiceBox upgrade order.I am a retired computer scientist and engineer, and it is my nature to research everything about my choices before deciding to buy a specific product. Accordingly, I made a list of top Level 2 EV chargers and started reading installation instructions, user guides, expert reviews, and user reviews. After all the hard work, my choice was narrowed down to: Tesla or EVIQO. Given my recent decision to boycott all Musk owned businesses, the final decision was easy. However, what sealed the deal was when I called EVIQO customer service with a question on a Sunday and, guess who answered the call, a co-founder of the company! My question was satisfactorily answered, and I ordered my charger.The unit was received promptly, and I installed it without a hassle. It has been in operation for more than 6 weeks now and is working to my satisfaction charging the Bolt after midnight when the rates are the cheapest. In fact, the installation and setup were a breeze compared to JuiceBox. Please note that I ordered a pluggable unit, and I already had the requisite 240V (NEMA 14-50) outlet in the garage. Based on my experience, all parts are high quality and, in some cases, better than the competitors. In my humble opinion, EVIQO charger is a superior product and I wholeheartedly recommend it.I did run into one non-technical issue - I am a member of the SmartCharge New York (SCNY) program which offers rebates for responsible use of EV charging. While JuiceBox was a SCNY-certified charger, unfortunately, EVIQO is not. I have requested SCNY to certify the EVIQO device but don't know how long the process is. It is my fault that I did not investigate this beforehand and stand to lose about $500 every year if the program continues and the EVIQO device remains unsupported.Given my background, I do have a few suggestions for improvements, however, I am not an electrical engineer and don't know how feasible some of the suggestions are. I compared the installation of EVIQO to installing and setting up the Starlink service. My experience with Starlink was the absolute best even though I had to cancel the service because of distaste for Mr. Musk's line of thinking. My Starlink unit was shipped with everything a homeowner may need for the installation, even a small piece of well-designed plastic stick to snake a wire through a 6-9" thick wall. Here are some of the salient corrections and/or suggested enhancements:1, Page 10 mentions needing a level and a stud finder, however, I did not see any mention of these two tools again in the installation instructions.2. I am a tool nut and already own a stud finder. However, I was unable to find a suitable "studded" location for the installation. The supplied M6 Hexagonal Expansion screws are not suitable for drywall installation. I bought and used heavy-duty anchors (and compatible screws) from the local hardware store. I wish such anchors were included with the product.3. Page 15 mentions 0.31" (8 mm) drill bit, which would be 5/16" for us retarded Americans.4. I wish there were a way to separate and, independently, configure input and output power cable to/from the charger. Please look at the picture, I was forced to cross the input and output cables because of the location of the outlet which made part of the installation process a little difficult.5. For better or worse, most garages are storage space for junk and mine is no different. While the charger unit is inside, the car is outside the garage. This makes routing the output cable under the garage door a challenge! If I had my wish, I would have drilled a nice clean hole through the garage wall, mounted an additional holster outside, routed the output cable through the hole, and plugged it into the charger. Imagine if the charger had twist-lock receptacles for input and output cable ports (top and bottom instead of the current both at the bottom)! This would help with cable crossing issues and help with keeping the two cables independently routable.6. There is no good reason to justify the annoyingly blinking green LED indicating waiting to start. Since I use scheduled charging, this is the most common situation in my case. I would recommend dim green for "Ready to start" and brighter green for "Waiting to start".As far as the mobile application to control the EVIQO, it is better than the most. It has been my life experience; software is always an afterthought for hardware manufacturers. However, that is not the case EVIQO, although I did have some usability challenges because the application is designed to be compatible with Android and iOS (the one I am used to). It will be helpful to simplify the functionality related to inputting utility rate structure and usage of this information with scheduled charging times.

I'll admit, when I first saw the price of this charger, I thought "you get what you pay for...". But with this charger, you get a whole lot more! I was concerned that this charger might not match the quality of some of the other "name brand" chargers that sell for hundreds more, but I decided to take a chance and I was not disappointed.The charger was easy to install and the instructions were clear and concise. I did have to open it to set the small adjustment switch to the proper setting for my breaker, since I wanted it to charge at a lower amperage than it's capable of providing because my car only draws at about 30 amps while charging. It came with heavy gauge wire terminals that could have been connected to my breaker's #6 wire if I wanted to direct wire it, but I had already installed a NEMA 14-50 outlet on a 50 amp GFCI breaker. And by the way, the charger does not trip the GFCI breaker in my panel which is why many people prefer to direct wire them. A garage outlet is required to have a GFCI breaker by code, but in some cases, a device that has its own internal GFCI can cause nuisance trips. This charger has worked flawlessly with our GFCI-protected outlet with no nuisance tripping so far after several multi-hour charging sessions.Once installed, I downloaded the app which also works well. Sometimes vendors who make great hardware make terrible software, but as a software engineer, I can say that I really like the functionality and UI design of this app. I especially like being able to look at charging session history and see the number of kwh delivered and the total duration of that session.The charger runs well, although I only use it at around 30 amps since our EV only accepts a 7.5kwh charge on a level 2 AC charger. But so far it has charged at the maximum rate that our car allows, and does so without getting warm (these high-amp devices are always a concern with heat and fire).The cable easily reaches from one side of garage where it's mounted to the other side of our two-car garage where the EV is parked. The car's charging port is facing the center of the two-car garage, but there's still a lot of slack left over when charging. The charger "nozzle" fits the car's J1772 charging port without any issues and barely gets warm while charging. It's easy to engage and disengage as well.I would highly recommend this charger to anyone who has an EV and wants a level 2 charger to charge at home. You may be concerned, like I was, about the lower price, thinking perhaps it's lower quality. But it's not, at least in my experience so far. The hardware has good solid build quality to it, the app is intuitive and provides useful information, and it charges at the rate the car accepts (up to it's stated limits, of course). If you need a charger for your EV, the Eviqo is a great solution at a great price.