Every charger has a controller board, and the firmware on it runs the charging session: it reads the car’s control-pilot signal, switches power on and off, watches for faults, meters the energy and — on connected models — talks to apps and platforms. If you manufacture chargers or brand them, the follow-up matters as much: after the units ship, who may change that firmware, and who delivers the change?
Key Takeaways
- Charger firmware runs the session in blocks: control, power supervision, protection, metering, connectivity and interface.
- Update responsibility is a chain — component supplier, manufacturer, brand, platform, owner — and each link should be named in the supply terms.
- Support period, recovery behaviour, record survival and signing keys are cheapest to settle before production.
- No firmware release can raise a hardware rating; updates govern behaviour, features and security.
What Runs on the Controller
Firmware is not one program but a set of blocks sharing one processor. The blocks scale with the product: a basic portable runs the first three, a networked station runs all of them.
| Firmware block | Its job |
|---|---|
| Session control | Runs the connect, handshake, charge and stop sequence from the control-pilot signal; applies the current setting |
| Power supervision | Drives the contactor or relay and enforces the configured current limit for the whole session |
| Protection monitoring | Watches the unit’s protective inputs and stops the session on a fault |
| Metering | Measures energy delivered, for display, app or billing record |
| Connectivity | Maintains the network link, app pairing and, on networked units, the OCPP stack |
| Interface | Drives the screen, lights and any fitted reader such as RFID |
Two consequences follow. First, firmware is where product behaviour lives: identical hardware behaves differently when its session control and limits differ. Second, the connectivity block makes the charger a network device at all — the layer our explainer on how smart EV chargers work describes from the user’s side, and the part that needs maintaining while the product is sold as connected.
Who Updates It: The Responsibility Chain
“Firmware updates” can mean five different jobs done by five different parties. Naming them is most of the work:
- Board and component suppliers provide the low-level drivers and bootloader — the layer nobody above them rewrites.
- The charger manufacturer writes and releases the application firmware, tests releases against its hardware revisions and signs them so units accept only genuine builds.
- The brand owner, on a private-label build, approves which releases carry its label and holds version records per batch.
- The platform operator distributes updates to managed networked fleets; on OCPP units this is a platform function, as our OCPP explainer sets out.
- The installer or owner accepts or applies updates on app-connected home units, within whatever the manufacturer releases.
If a supply agreement is silent on these roles, the default is narrow: only the original manufacturer can fix, extend or patch the product.
Pin It Down Before the Build
For a manufacturing or private-label programme, put these firmware terms in writing before production:
- The update route per model — app, platform or service tool — and who can trigger an update.
- Release notes and version history for every release, kept per batch.
- Recovery behaviour if an update is interrupted, and whether a fallback exists — specified, not assumed.
- Whether settings and session records survive an update, stated per model.
- The support period as an agreed term, and what end of support means for units in the field.
- Signing and keys: only signed firmware loads, and who holds the signing keys if the relationship changes.
Firmware Terms in an EVDANCE Programme
The EVDANCE range spans both patterns on its listings: the EV-ACT3204E wallbox is listed with RFID and app control, and the EV-AC03201T dual-connector station and EV-RHDC30K-L compact DC charger are listed with OCPP 1.6J for platform management. What no listing contains is a firmware policy — routes, periods and key-holding are programme terms, agreed in the OEM and private-label discussion. Raise them via the contact page before the build, while they are still cheap to settle.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can firmware raise a charger’s power?
No. The rating is set by the hardware. Firmware operates inside that ceiling; a release can restore behaviour a bug was suppressing, but cannot turn one rating into another.
Who owns the firmware in a private-label build?
Whoever the supply contract says — which is precisely why the contract must say it. Licence scope, update rights and what happens if the relationship ends are written terms; unwritten, they are unsettled.
What if the manufacturer stops releasing updates?
The chargers keep charging. The exposure is slower-moving: unpatched security issues and drifting compatibility on the connected layer. Mitigations are agreed beforehand: a stated support period, update rights for the brand, and a last-release stability commitment.
Related Reading
- How Do Smart EV Chargers Work?
- OCPP Explained: What Charge Point Operators Need From EV Charger Hardware
- Do Home EV Chargers Need Wi-Fi?
- Smart vs Non-Smart EV Chargers: What Installers Actually Want
