Almost half of the people in Germany use smart home applications. The trend is similar in many other European countries. Most have smart lamps and lights, smart radiator thermostats to save energy, smart plugs, and smart meters for electricity, gas, or water.
EV chargers integrated into smart homes are becoming more popular, but the growth is slow. One reason is that not everyone knows about the benefits. And trust us – they are missing out on a lot. Adding your wallbox to your smart home might seem unnecessary if the wallbox is already smart. However, a smart home system can offer many extra possibilities, even if you use one of the most intelligent chargers on the European market, like our go-e Charger.
Read on to learn what you can achieve with a wallbox in your smart home setup and how to get started.
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We asked our YouTube community how they integrate their go-e Charger into their smart home.
33% use platforms like Home Assistant, ioBroker, or openHAB; 13% rely on their own API scripts or MQTT; and 6% control it via Alexa or Apple HomeKit.
Nearly half aren’t using any smart home integration yet — at least not yet.
When your EV charger becomes part of your smart ecosystem, your home can, for instance, coordinate charging with solar production in any way you like. The right setup also allows you to adjust power based on household load, balance battery storage and EV demand and customise charging to fit your routines.
To truly benefit from a smart home, you need a Home Energy Management System (HEMS) — essentially an energy management system (EMS) designed specifically for residential use. Simple communication between devices alone is not sufficient for truly effective automations
An HEMS measures how energy is distributed among various devices in your house. When you integrate it into a smart home system such as Home Assistant, your heating, fridge, EV charger and other devices can communicate with each other and automatically reply to different situations.
As more households install solar panels, battery storage systems, heat pumps, and wallboxes, the need for coordinated energy management is increasing. The devices we’ve mentioned can both generate and consume large amounts of electricity. If they operate independently, they may compete for power simultaneously, which can increase costs or create high load peaks.
Your smart home connects and coordinates important energy devices in a household, such as:
Integration requires these devices to be compatible with the HEMS communication standards. Basically, an HEMS acts as a central translator, bridging the different 'languages' (such as various APIs) of your home’s most powerful devices. It specifically integrates and controls large-scale energy generators, consumers, and storage facilities to ensure they speak the same language.
Martin Apelgren, Principal Analyst at Berg InsightHEMS as part of modern homes
“There is no doubt that HEMS will be an important part of homes in the coming years.”
Smart Home without HEMS | Smart Home with HEMS |
Focus on convenience (lighting, presence detection, automations) | Focus on convenience + energy optimisation across the entire home |
Devices communicate but may not optimise energy together | Energy devices actively coordinate to maximise efficiency and minimise costs |
Risk of high load peaks when multiple devices run simultaneously | Energy consumption is balanced to avoid overloads |
Solar energy may be exported to the grid even when devices could use it | Solar energy is prioritised for charging the car, running appliances, or charging batteries |
Automations are rule-based (e.g. time or presence) | Decisions can include energy data, forecasts, and tariffs |
EV chargers are often the largest electricity consumers in a household, drawing up to 11 or 22 kW. Managing such devices intelligently is vital to balance high-power appliances like heat pumps and electric ovens to prevent exceeding your home's electrical capacity. With this integration and an HEMS in place, your charger automatically responds to real-time energy consumption data and ensures that your home remains efficient and cost-effective.
Several trends are making smart energy management more important:
To make this work, energy devices need to communicate and exchange data using open standards such as MQTT, Modbus TCP, HTTP APIs, or OCPP.
Smart homes thrive on automation, especially when EV charging is included. Once integrated, charging can respond to calendar events, arrival detection, electricity prices, or weather conditions. However, to use energy as efficiently as possible and reduce costs, you also need an HEMS.
Examples of automations you can do without an HEMS:
When the wallbox is connected to a HEMS, automation becomes more specifically energy-driven. Examples include:
For your smart home and HEMS to work well and optimise how and when your EV is charged, the wallbox needs to have certain capabilities that allow external systems to monitor and control charging behaviour.
What makes a wallbox smart-home compatible:
Feature | Importance |
Open protocols (API, MQTT, Modbus TCP, OCPP or others) | Required |
Adjustable charging current | Required |
Charger app configuration for enabling integrations | Required for some brands |
Local control capability (automations continue without cloud connection) | Highly recommended |
Support for PV surplus charging | Highly recommended |
Phase-switching | Recommended |
Load management | Recommended |
Energy meter to track kWh, power, and session data | Recommended |
With open communication standards such as MQTT, API, Modbus TCP or OCPP, your EV charger can both send and receive data in real time. This allows your smart home to read live information such as charging status, current power, voltage, amperage, total energy charged, session duration, and even error messages.
In advanced setups, many other things can be adjusted. For instance, charging power can be dynamically regulated every few seconds depending on solar production, grid limits, battery state, or household load. And just like that, your wallbox is not a passive device but an actively managed energy component.
Some wallboxes are designed to work mainly within their own brand ecosystem and integrate best with the same manufacturer’s inverter and energy manager. Others are more open and provide APIs that allow integration with various independent smart-home systems.
Brands like SMA (eCharger) are designed to work best inside their own ecosystem. They integrate very smoothly with their own inverter, energy manager, and energy management system. This can make setup simple if your home already uses that brand.
Other chargers, like go-e Charger, are more open systems. They provide APIs and communication protocols that allow them to work with many independent smart-home platforms. However, this can also lead to limitations, which is why some users decide to integrate a wallbox from another brand that can be managed more openly.
“I have a go-e Charger Gemini flex connected to a CEE socket. The API is super simple and is supported by evcc.io, a really great open-source project.” Reddit user
A smart-home-compatible wallbox typically offers a dedicated mobile app for configuration and daily use. For many users, it is the primary way to configure integrations and advanced features. Depending on the brand, you may be able to enable local API access, connect the charger to a smart home platform, activate load management, or configure solar charging modes directly from the app.
You can integrate your wallbox into your smart home through smart home platforms, local APIs, standard protocols like MQTT or Modbus, or cloud services. Local integrations usually enable faster and more reliable automations. On the other hand, cloud-based connections depend on internet access.
Many users connect their wallbox through popular smart home platforms that already support EV chargers. Common platforms include Home Assistant, Loxone, openHAB, Node-RED, and evcc. These systems can monitor charging data and create automations such as adjusting charging power based on solar production or household consumption.
Some wallboxes provide a local API that allows your smart home system to communicate directly with the charger.
With a local API, you can typically:
Because communication happens within your home network, automations can continue to work even if the internet connection is unavailable.
More advanced setups use standard communication protocols commonly used in automation systems.
Typical examples include:
These protocols make it easy to integrate the wallbox into a smart home system.
Some wallboxes rely on cloud APIs provided by the manufacturer. Your smart home connects to the charger through the internet rather than directly on the local network.
This approach may depend on:
For advanced energy management setups, many smart home users prefer chargers that also support local integrations.
When bidirectional charging is involved, your smart home energy management system can automatically decide where electricity should go depending on:
This can help you save a lot on energy and make your lifestyle more sustainable. To give you a better picture of how it works, let’s look at a couple of possible scenarios.
The system can detect a power outage and automatically switch the house into a so-called backup mode. This will make your smart home draw power from the EV battery via the bidirectional charger. The system won’t drain your car completely. It only uses the battery down to the minimum charge which you set yourself or the limit defined by the manufacturer.
At the same time, the smart home can focus on the most important things in your house. It can prioritise essentials like lighting, the fridge, internet, or heating. And just like that, your home can keep running for hours (sometimes even days) without you needing to do anything. If the outage only lasts a short time, you might not even notice that your house switched to backup power.
A smart home system can connect with calendars or driving patterns. It then calculates how much battery your electric car needs for the next trip. While the smart home may use some EV energy to power the house in the evening (e.g. solar energy stored in the EV during the day), the system ensures that the vehicle still has enough charge or is automatically recharged before the planned departure time.
You should expect to pay between €700 and €1,500 for a smart-home-compatible EV charger in 2026. Some options cost even more but do not necessarily add greater value.
Additional costs to consider:
Mobile chargers like our go-e Charger Gemini flex require no fixed installation. You simply plug them into an existing red CEE socket to begin charging, resulting in €0 installation costs. However, it is highly recommended to have a professional electrician inspect your home’s electrical system first to ensure it can safely handle the continuous load.
Stationary wallboxes, on the other hand, must be installed by a qualified electrician to be safely connected to the power grid. The basic installation service typically costs between €200 and €600 if no extensive renovation work is required.
Your setup might require laying new cables through walls or upgrading your fuse box to increase electrical capacity. Services like that normally cost an additional €300 to €1,000+.
For many EV owners, integrating a wallbox into a smart home system is absolutely worth it. The investment makes even more sense if the household has a HEMS.
A smart-home-compatible EV charger is especially useful if you:
The best wallboxes for smart home integration include the go-e Charger Gemini flex 2.0, Zaptec Go 2, and Elli Charger Connect 2. While all three offer strong connectivity and smart home compatibility, they differ in flexibility, openness of integrations, and how easily they can be integrated into custom smart home setups.
Designed as an open and flexible charging station that can integrate with many smart home platforms and energy management systems. The go-e Charger supports a wide range of local and standard protocols, whereas many competitors focus on a more limited selection.
It is a mobile charging station that can be used both at home and on the go. This design allows for €0 installation costs by simply plugging it into an existing red CEE socket.
"I personally have a go-e Charger Gemini. The wallbox is relatively affordable and very flexible out of the box. It also has an API and an MQTT interface." From the Community forum
Integration protocols
Connectivity
Energy management features
Extras
* Many smart features like flexible energy tariffs, RFID control, and PV surplus charging are available for all go-e app users. Some features require an energy management system, such as the go-e Controller or an HEMS.
"I am thrilled with the go-e wallbox and especially with this company's customer service. After a minor problem with my 5-year-old wallbox, I received extremely quick assistance. I can only recommend this company to everyone." Christian Briksi, Google reviews
go-e Charger Gemini flex 2.0 11 kW
The go-e Charger Gemini flex 2.0 with integrated SIM card is here. The mobile wallbox offers up to 11 kW charging power for 1-phase and 3-phase charging from 1.4 kW. The smart wallbox with even more connectivity can be used both stationary in the wall bracket and mobile.
go-e Charger Gemini flex 2.0 22 kW
The go-e Charger Gemini flex 2.0 with integrated SIM card is here and offers you a free cellular connectivity for at least 5 years. An extension is possible for EUR12 (incl. VAT) per year. The mobile wallbox offers up to 22 kW charging power for 1-phase and 3-phase charging from 1.4 kW. The smart wallbox with even more connectivity can be used both stationary in the wall bracket and mobile.
Focuses on reliable connectivity and advanced energy management features while also supporting open integration standards. Works with platforms such as Home Assistant or Homey via API or OCPP-based systems.
Integration protocols
Connectivity
Energy management features
Extras
Designed for integration with modern energy management systems and the Volkswagen Group ecosystem.
Integration protocols
Connectivity
Energy management features
Extras
More and more devices are starting to use open communication standards like MQTT or Modbus TCP. These standards make it easier for EV chargers, heat pumps, and other home devices from different manufacturers to work together in one smart energy system. In other words, open ecosystems gain popularity.
We will probably see a growing number of EV owners treating their vehicles as part of the home’s energy system. For example, during a power outage, the energy stored in the car battery could keep some devices running for a while — so the phone stays charged and the lights in the living room remain on. The best part is that you set the system up once, and it takes care of the rest automatically.
Energy management systems are also becoming more automated overall. Instead of deciding when to charge your car or run appliances, the smart home can make these decisions for you. For example, if your solar panels produce a lot of energy around midday, the system might automatically charge your EV or run appliances like the dishwasher. Later in the evening, when electricity prices rise, it could switch to the energy stored in the EV battery.
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