Expect a few weeks to a couple of months from the moment you decide to install a charging station until a guest can actually charge there. The exact time mainly depends on three things: does your meter cabinet have enough capacity for an additional charging station, how quickly can an electrician visit, and how quickly do you have the hardware in house. At a property where the connection already has sufficient capacity, it can be faster than at a premises where the grid operator must first make an adjustment.
The shortest route is: you order the charging station and the associated module, an electrician connects it to a dedicated circuit in the meter cabinet, and you activate everything yourself with your phone via Bluetooth. That last step takes literally a few minutes. The delay almost never lies in the activation, but in everything that must happen before it.
Why the meter cabinet is often the first hurdle
A charging station draws considerable current, more than most other appliances in a home. Before that station can be installed, there must be space in the meter cabinet: a free circuit, sufficient capacity on the main connection, and a residual current device that fits accordingly. That is the cabinet with circuit breakers where all electrical circuits of your home come together, and it determines whether an extra circuit can simply be added or whether something must first be adjusted.
At a standard home with a modern meter cabinet this is often manageable in one electrician visit. At an older building, a holiday park with multiple customers on one connection, or a location where the main connection is already heavily loaded, it may be necessary for the grid operator to first upgrade the connection. That process runs through the grid operator itself and not through Staywatt, and the lead time for that varies widely by region and by grid operator. If you want an initial impression beforehand of whether your situation is straightforward or complex, then a few questions with an immediate indication provides a first direction, separate from what the grid operator ultimately reports back.
What else needs to happen
If the meter cabinet and the connection are in order, there are still a few practical steps remaining. The charging station and measurement module must be ordered and delivered; the delivery time for these depends on the supplier and which model you choose. Subsequently, the electrician connects the station to a dedicated circuit, with a dedicated residual current device for that circuit, so that a fault at the charging station does not affect the rest of the home.
After that you activate the module yourself via Bluetooth on your phone, link a tariff per kWh to it, and generate the QR code that will be displayed at the station. A guest scans that code, immediately sees what charging costs at your location, and starts or stops themselves. No account or installation is required on the guest side for this step. How that link between station, tariff and QR code works in detail is described more extensively on the page where we show where the information and the technology come from.
For the electrician: the technical side
A charging station is typically connected to a dedicated circuit, executed in accordance with standard practices for charging infrastructure, with a dedicated residual current device type B or A depending on the charging power and type of station. With three phases (three separate power lines that together can deliver more power than one phase), prior consultation with the grid operator about available capacity is often necessary. The measurement module is placed between the circuit and the charging station and communicates via Bluetooth for activation and subsequently via the network for measurement data.
Where the lead time typically gets stuck in practice
Most delays don't occur at Staywatt itself, but at the interfaces around it: a grid operator who needs time to assess a connection, an electrician who can only come in a few weeks, or a charging pole that is temporarily unavailable. If you know this in advance, you can adjust your planning accordingly: start the application process with the grid operator in good time if you're unsure whether your connection is sufficient, and order the hardware as soon as you know which model you want.
Whether you're installing a single charging pole at a single holiday home or multiple poles at a holiday park, the principle remains the same: each pole is a separate object with its own QR code and its own tariff. This means you can have one pole activated as soon as it's ready, without having to wait until all the other poles are also connected. You'll find an overview of what the hardware and the monthly subscription per object cost on the page with tariffs per component.
If you want to know how a charging pole relates to other questions about electricity in rental properties, from the meter cabinet to billing guests, you'll find that clearly laid out in the knowledge base with answers per topic. If you're still unsure whether your situation is straightforward or requires a bit more preparation, the free quick scan is a quick way to clarify that before you order anything.