Control Your Wallbox Locally with OCPP and evcc – Using the Rheidon PC200 Pro

Thu, 12 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Advertising: This post was created in a paid partnership with Rheidon. Links marked (paid link) are affiliate links. Rheidon had no influence on the content of my article and video.

No, this is not a lady’s handbag. Inside is a charging cable for an EV – more precisely, a portable wallbox: the Rheidon PC200 Pro. At home it charges from my three-phase socket, and when I’m on the road it rides along in the trunk. It has no smart home interface of its own. Still, I control it completely locally, without cloud and without app. That’s thanks to a protocol almost every wallbox speaks, but hardly anyone uses: OCPP.

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What is OCPP?

OCPP stands for Open Charge Point Protocol. It was invented for public charging stations: every station has to report to a server who is charging and how much, and there’s a vendor-independent standard for that.

The interesting part is the direction. The server doesn’t poll the wallbox – the wallbox calls the server and keeps the connection open (a WebSocket). If I can set which server the wallbox calls, it doesn’t have to be the manufacturer’s server on the internet. It can be my own computer in the basement. And evcc can do exactly that: it becomes a standard-compliant OCPP server.

Why that’s great:

It’s a standard. Many wallboxes have OCPP on board, even if the box says nothing about smart home. For the PC200 Pro it’s only in the datasheet: OCPP 1.6J.
It runs locally. No account, no cloud that might be switched off one day. evcc doesn’t need to know the wallbox explicitly – it’s enough that it speaks the standard.
Set the charging current. OCPP lets you not only start and stop charging, but also set the current. That’s the basis for solar surplus charging or charging when electricity is cheap.

To be honest: OCPP 1.6 leaves manufacturers a lot of leeway. What a box does with a command isn’t always the same. That’s where the pitfalls below come from.

Rule of thumb: If your wallbox speaks OCPP and you can enter the server address yourself, you can control it locally with evcc.

Setup: app, evcc and Home Assistant

On the PC200 Pro this is done in the “Rheidon+” app, which I need once anyway to get the wallbox onto Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz only). In the OCPP settings I enter the evcc address:

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ws://<evcc-host>:8887/<station-id>

The address starts with ws://, not http:// – otherwise the app complains. Unencrypted ws:// belongs on your home network only, though – over the internet always use wss://.
Under “External management”, the “External control” switch has to be on, otherwise it won’t connect.
You can choose the station ID after the slash freely. It helps to tell several OCPP wallboxes apart.

In evcc I create a new charge point of type OCPP. As soon as the box checks in, I see its station ID. The evcc web interface and the app (“Connection successful”) show whether it worked.

A minimal configuration in evcc.yaml looks like this:

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chargers:
 - name: pc200pro
 type: template
 template: ocpp-rheidon
 stationid: "42"

Since my test there’s a dedicated template (evcc-io/evcc#35511) that already sets remotestart correctly. With older evcc versions, use the generic “OCPP 1.6J compatible” template and set remotestart: true yourself (see below).

Note: OCPP wallboxes require an evcc sponsor token, which supports evcc’s development.

Also, the box always reports the same current for all three phases. If you charge single-phase via the household socket adapter, set the charge point’s phases to 1.

What about Home Assistant?

The wallbox doesn’t need to be integrated into Home Assistant directly. The chain is: Home Assistant talks to evcc, evcc talks to the wallbox via OCPP. Everything stays on your home network. With the evcc integration you get charging power, charging current and charge mode as normal entities for dashboards and automations, in case evcc’s options aren’t enough for you.

Important: a wallbox connects to only one OCPP server at a time. evcc as the server with Home Assistant behind it is the simplest setup.

Pitfalls: what to check on your wallbox

Nothing happens when plugging in

Wallbox plugged into the car – and nothing happens. evcc just shows “Waiting for authorization”, even though the box is set to plug and charge. In OCPP mode, evcc waits for the charging session to be officially authorized, like holding your charging card to a public station.

The fix is one line in the evcc configuration:

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remotestart: true

With that, evcc starts charging itself. Unplug and plug back in once, and it worked.

evcc down, power down

Two tests you should do with your wallbox as well:

evcc goes down: The PC200 Pro keeps charging with the last setting and tries to reconnect about every 25 seconds. Once evcc is back, control continues seamlessly. That’s how it should be.
Power outage: Check whether charging resumes on its own after power returns and whether your settings are retained. This depends not only on the wallbox but also on the car.

In short: test starting, regulating, pausing and power outage. Only then is your OCPP wallbox ready for everyday use.

The device: Rheidon PC200 Pro

The PC200 Pro is a portable wallbox with swappable adapters on a quick coupling. The red CEE 16 A plug comes as standard; adapters for blue CEE (campsites) and household sockets are sold separately. Switching takes seconds: plug on, click, done.


Power	11 kW on red CEE 16 A (three-phase), measured a good 10 kW
Household socket / blue CEE	up to 3.6 kW (adapter sold separately)
Charging current	6–16 A on the device, delayed start in 15-minute steps
Communication	OCPP 1.6J, Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth, “Rheidon+” app optional
Protection	Type A + 6 mA DC, TÜV Rheinland, IP65
Cable	7.5 m Type 2, 5.8 kg, with bag and wall holder

Source: rheidon.com datasheet (as of 09/2026), measured value from my test.

What I like: Everything important can be set directly on the device without the app, and the buttons are easy to find even in the dark. During charging they’re locked for safety reasons, but the app remains usable. Without evcc you set a charging target in the app by kilometers, battery level or time.

Careful with household sockets: The household socket adapter does not limit the current automatically – it’s 16 A there too by default. For continuous load on a normal socket I’d go for 8 to 10 A. Rheidon also recommends 10 A at most, more only with a suitable installation on its own circuit. There’s also an 8 A household socket adapter and a GreenUp adapter (up to 16 A on GreenUp sockets, for the 7.4 kW version). When in doubt, limit the charge point in evcc. On my road trip through Croatia I measured with a thermal camera how warm a foreign socket gets at 10 A: 30 to 35 °C, completely uncritical.

Solar surplus and phases

With evcc, the PC200 Pro charges from solar surplus without any additional device. Without evcc, Rheidon offers the AC550 load manager for that.

evcc regulates continuously between 6 and 16 A – the charging standard doesn’t allow less. That results in a minimum charging power of 1.4 kW single-phase (household socket) and 4.1 kW three-phase (CEE). Many wallboxes automatically switch from three phases to one when the sun is weak. The PC200 Pro can’t do that. In practice: in summer, three-phase on the red CEE plug; in spring and autumn, better single-phase via the adapter, and switch the phases in evcc.

The bug – and how Rheidon responded

During my test I stumbled upon a real bug. When evcc wants to pause (mode “Off” or not enough sun), it sends a limit of 0 A. The PC200 Pro didn’t pause – it ramped up to the full 16 A. For solar surplus charging that’s a deal-breaker.

I reported it to Rheidon with protocol traces and log files. The product manager and his development team found the cause quickly: the firmware I tested discarded everything below 6 A as invalid – including 0, which is supposed to mean “pause”. Firmware 2.1.7.2.1.9 fixes it: evcc set to “Off”, and the box pauses correctly.

After the test I submitted the PC200 Pro to evcc as a tested model. From the next version on, it’s listed under its own name among the supported wallboxes, with remotestart preconfigured.

Tip for any OCPP wallbox: Test pausing. Otherwise you’ll only notice when the car is already full of grid power.

On the side: the manufacturer cloud

During the analysis, Rheidon could look up my charging sessions in their own cloud. So besides OCPP, the box also talks to the manufacturer cloud as long as it’s on Wi-Fi. Rheidon can only access a specific box’s data with its Device Code from the app, which I had shared for the analysis. That was helpful for troubleshooting, but you should know about it. If it bothers you, put the wallbox on a separate network or block its internet access – OCPP to evcc keeps working on your home network. But then no updates arrive either, and it was exactly such an update that fixed this bug.

Conclusion

If you need a wallbox that works on an existing socket without an electrician (rental, holiday home, second home, on the road) and you still want to control it locally with evcc, the PC200 Pro is a pretty good package. It brings features you’d usually expect from a fixed wallbox (solar surplus charging, energy management integration, dynamic load balancing) while staying fully portable. Since the update, OCPP works including pausing, and the controls on the device are well thought out. With a CEE socket in the garage it can definitely replace a fixed wallbox – with evcc you’ll hardly notice a difference in everyday use.

🛒 PC200 Pro from Rheidon: AFFILIATE_LINK (paid link)

Do you control your wallbox via OCPP too? What quirks have you found? Tell me in the comments under the video.

Rheidon on Smart Home? Sure — But Secure!

Control Your Wallbox Locally with OCPP and evcc – Using the Rheidon PC200 Pro

What is OCPP?

Setup: app, evcc and Home Assistant

What about Home Assistant?

Pitfalls: what to check on your wallbox

Nothing happens when plugging in

evcc down, power down

The device: Rheidon PC200 Pro

Solar surplus and phases

The bug – and how Rheidon responded

On the side: the manufacturer cloud

Conclusion