Brighter EV charging for your business
The io8 by Ratio
Our newest EV charger, the io8 utilises ambient lighting to provide greater illumination, safety, and aesthetics for your site.
- Built for business and public places
- 7.4kw / 22kw
- Made in the UK
io8 EV Charger Features
High Performance Optics
General area lighting
OCPP 1.6 Compliant
Connects with any back office management system
Three Year Warranty
Quality assured with 3 years peace of mind
Multiple Charging Capabilities
Plug & charge, mobile app or RFID controlled charging
Over-the-air Updates
Ensures your charger is always up to date
Professional Lighting Any Time, Any Place
The io8 combines EV charging and ambient lighting in a single package. Its built-in lighting head transforms ordinary charging bays into welcoming, well-lit environments, while delivering charging performance your business can count on. Easy to set up with reduced service costs, the io8’s tough IK10 rated aluminium body is light, strong, and simple to maintain. It’s the charger that does more, with less fuss.
- Designed for quick installation and easy maintenance
- Extruded aluminium body with die-cast aluminium head unit sealed to IP66
- Flexible payment and usage methods – plug & charge, mobile app, and RFID controlled charging
The io8 fits where you need it with 1.5m, 2.5m, or 3m height options. It’s a comprehensive solution for various environments, including workplaces, car parks, and hotels. We offer full configuration to suit your power availability and charging needs, internet connectivity, lighting requirements, and budget.
Glow Up From Dusk Till Dawn
The io8 changes how you see EV charging with a lighting head that elevates your surroundings as well as your charging experience.
Using an ambient lighting design, we’re giving you more light where you need it. The soft glow adds style to any setting, from high-end hotels to office parks, making charging your EV at night as bright and safe as daytime.
- Highly uniform luminaire spacing
- Ambient lighting fully illuminates surroundings
- 100,000 hour LED lifespan
The high performance nature of the io8’s ambient illumination means that it seamlessly fits into the architectural lighting solution of your site, used as lighting to illuminate walkways in the event of an emergency, and even to shine a light on bonnet and boot storage when looking for your charging cable.
Sense and Sensibility
The optional io8 Sense hardware can provide both static and dynamic load management, maximising your charging speeds while protecting your building and energy supply.
- Control up to 16 io8s (32 vehicles) with the io8 Sense Pro.
- Control up to 5 io8s (10 vehicles) with the io8 Sense Lite.
The full io8 Sense family takes the power consumption of all in-use sockets into a load calculation, allowing you to isolate specific chargers and maximise charging for VIPs, decreasing the consumption of chargers identified for visitors or other EV charging parking spaces.
Load Management Features:
Maximised Charging Speeds
Prioritise vehicle charging
Solar Integration
Fully utilise your renewable energy
Scalability of Installation
From a single charger to a fully managed system reporting energy use across the business
Building Protection
Prevents overloading of power consumption
Flexibility
Options for either the io8 Sense Lite or the io8 Sense Pro
Full Fleet Integration
io8 Sense Pro can support up to 32 vehicles
Configure io8
Charging your car should be Convenient, Connected, Protected. At Ratio we make choosing your home charger as simple and reassuring as possible.Three phase versions available to special order, contact us for more info.
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Stay Connected
Fully tested and approved for UK and EU markets, our range of EV charging cables and mobile chargers are ideal for when you’re at home, work, or on the road.
Shop Accessories
Ratio For Business
Ratio for Business is our flexible back office for EV chargers. Support your business through saving energy, reducing costs, and even generating revenue. Data and payments can also be easily managed via a single software platform.
Find Out Moreio8 Sense
The io8 is available with both static and dynamic load management systems. Using io8 Sense, the io8 is designed to maximise charging speeds whilst protecting the electrical installation and building infrastructure.
Frequently Asked Questions
A tethered EV charger cable is permanently attached to your charging unit whereas an untethered charger cable is kept loose and needs to be connected to the charging unit and the car to complete a charge. Ultimately, the best charger for depends on the individual preferences, requirements, and charging habits.
Slow
3 pin plug, up to a 16A commando (camping) socket. Max 3.7kWh, full charges an EV in circa 24 hours. Typically used as a failsafe for an EV driver just-in-case.
Fast Destination Charging
Ratio’s core marketplace. Single and three-phase, up to 32A (7.4kW and 22kW).
Rapid/Ultra Rapid
DC energy starting from 40kW to 350kW. Main use-case would be motorway services etc. when you need a charge in 20 minutes whilst getting a coffee.
EV load management is the ability to control how much energy an EV charger dispenses to a vehicle; controlling when electricity is used, where it goes and how much goes to each vehicle.
Load management ensures that each vehicle is charged as much as possible, without threatening the electricity grid, building infrastructure or risking high demand charges, by specifically addressing the even distribution of electrical loads within the power distribution system to maintain stability and prevent issues related to imbalances.
Static load management involves the installation of EV charging equipment on a dedicated power supply that has a known fixed power capacity. The EV chargers are designed to effectively manage this power supply by evenly distributing the load between them as more sockets are utilised. This can be done at Cloud level (using back-office software) or locally to the chargers using the Ratio Sense.
For example, a site that has 22kW available in total and 4 sockets; each charge point will receive the maximum power available i.e. 5.5kW for 4 vehicles, 7.3kW for three vehicles, 11kW for two vehicles.
Dynamic load management monitors the building’s energy supply and usage, calculating the power available and distributing it equally to the EV charger installation. As the building power consumption increases (heavy machinery being switched on or off for example), the additional dynamic load management hardware will increase or decrease the power available to the EV charger installation.
OZEV stands for the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles. It was previously known as OLEV the Office for Low Emission Vehicles. To be approved by OZEV for installation, all chargepoints must meet a minimum set of technical requirements.
There are various government OZEV grants for charging available, designed to encourage the uptake of EVs and to help businesses with the upfront costs associated with installing charge point equipment, as well as the infrastructure needed.
- Workplace Charging Scheme
- Chargepoint Grant for Renters or Flat Owners
- Chargepoint and Infrastructure Grants for Landlords
- Infrastructure Grant for Staff and Fleet Carparks
There are also government funds set up for councils with a pool of money set aside to enable councils to install chargers for public use either on-street or in charging hubs for example. Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) funding and On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) grants. These funds and grants will rely on the Charge Point Operator, often either a large business or being backed by investment, to fund a significant proportion of the installation (regularly up to 60%).
There are various government OZEV grants for workplace charging available
OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol) is an open-source communication protocol that standardises the communication between EV charge points (CP) and charge point management systems (CPMS).
RFID stands for radio frequency identification. An RFID card lets you start a charge at a public charging point by tapping your card against a reader. The card contains unique data that is transmitted to the charging station, allowing it to identify the user and initiate the charging process.
Ratio utilises an innovative electric vehicle charge point management software, known as Fuuse, which allows for a flexible workplace EV charging platform. This system allows the business owner to decide whether to keep their charge points private for employees, or to be discoverable by members of the public. Fuuse offers multi-tariff options which means you can charge different rates for various user groups – for example, you may wish to offer EV charging to employees at no cost, whereas customers and visitors can be charged for their usage which will open a brand new revenue stream for the business.
Commercial installations may require 4G connectivity to keep the charger installation away from the building Wi-Fi network.
