CTEK CS ONE Charger – Product Review
September 17, 2022
Back in May we reviewed Swedish battery experts CTEK’s flagship charger – the CS FREE. Well power to the people because we’re back once again with the regenerating masters as we take a look at another of its adaptive battery chargers/maintainers: the CS ONE. Whilst this model doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of the CS FREE it’s still a pretty trick bit of kit with all sorts of intelligent electronic wizardry inside. When it comes to your classic, whether it be a car or motorbike, or even a boat for that matter, battery health is vitally important and generally speaking our classics don’t get driven every day. More often than not they are reserved for weekend blasts or summer jaunts meaning that their batteries aren’t being charged regularly by way of the alternator. It’s a fact that all automotive batteries discharge over time so when it comes to irregular or occasional use vehicles the battery needs to be consistently topped up and maintained. That’s where the CTEK CS ONE comes in.
The Product
The CS ONE is more of a stand alone charger/maintainer rather than an all-in-one charging solution like the FREE. For starters it’s hard wired so you’ll need a power source to use it, making it a stay at home trickle charger that you would leave permanently connected to your vehicle’s battery. The USP here is its intelligence combined with app functionality. Every electronic device nowadays seems to have app support, with some being far more useful than others and the CS ONE app is actually pretty useful, displaying important information about your vehicle’s battery as well as giving you the ability to choose different functions.
There are no buttons or modes to select on the the CS ONE either, just a simple LED display. It uses its adaptive technology to talk to the battery, working out its chemistry, size, health and what type of charge it needs and then automatically delivers a customised charging program to match. Once fully charged the CS ONE can then be disconnected from the battery or safely left attached whereby it will continue to maintain automatically. The clamps supplied with the charger are polarity, as well as spark-free too, although not in 12V supply mode. The cables are different lengths, however, with the longer cable being positive but even if you do get them the wrong way round you won’t cause any damage and the CS ONE will have a word.
The Test
With the CTEK app we wanted to connect the CTEK CS ONE to each of our car and motorbike batteries to see what state they were in as we’ve had power issues with both in the past. The first port of call was downloading the app which is free. We then had to create an account with CTEK, turn on Bluetooth and then locate the CS ONE which was automatically found. Once paired with our smartphone a firmware update was necessary and after all of the setup shenanigans were completed we could then finally connect the thing to our batteries one at a time and see what was what.
The Result
As soon as the charger was connected to the battery the app recognised it immediately and told us how much time was left until full charge, as well as providing the real-time voltage and amperage figures being delivered. We didn’t need to utilise the recondition function as our batteries were not complete toast and so a charge-up was all that was required. The CS ONE let us know once both batteries were fully charged and we then left it connected to the bike in automatic maintenance mode. Despite all of the smart tech inside the thing it’s a remarkably simple product to use and we had no issues whatsoever.
Bike battery on the left, car battery on the right immediately after being connected
The Verdict – 4 out of 5
The CS ONE is quite simply an excellent, robust, intelligent charger and maintainer with a 5 year warranty that won’t damage your battery with ill behaviour. Yes you have to register an account to use the app (if you want to that is), which itself is a little clunky, but it’s no big deal and it all works together pretty seamlessly. We’re docking a point because of the price and we’re of the opinion that you might as well spend that little extra for the CS FREE and cover all of your charging needs but while we have that particular bit of kit stashed in our car at all times the CTEK CS ONE will stay in the garage connected permanently to the bike in place of our previous charger. Level up.
