The Best Vacuum for Pet Hair—We Tested Many to Find Which Ones Work Best (2026)

1 hour ago 1

Compare Our Picks

Others Tested

Tineco Go Pet Cordless Vacuum leaning against a achromatic partition and acheronian wood floors

Tineco Go Pet Cordless Vacuum for $176: As erstwhile I tested the Tineco Go Mini ($130) for my handheld vacuums guide, I was a spot underwhelmed by this vacuum specifically for pets. It has a slot for casual brushwood removal if hairsbreadth gets stuck astir the bars, which is simply a adjuvant happening to person erstwhile you’re dealing with favored (and human) hair. The lever and the space of the lid for emptying are counterintuitive, and the archetypal fewer times I emptied it, the debris went everywhere. It’s hard to separate betwixt eco and powerfulness modes, and the vac blinked reddish and the brushwood stopped rotating erstwhile transitioning betwixt surfaces. (It particularly had a hard clip connected my bladed runner rug.) It felt a spot heavier and clunkier than others arsenic well. But, it does person useful lights to illuminate debris and comes with attachments to marque handheld cleaning a breeze.

Image whitethorn incorporate Bathroom Indoors Room Toilet and Device

Mova P50 Pro Ultra Robot Vacuum for $589: This robot vacuum-mop combo has extendable broadside brushwood and mop pads to scope choky corners, a self-emptying dock presumption that empties particulate and debris, and self-cleans and dries mop pads. It besides uses an RGB camera and “intelligent ungraded detection system” whose sensors place messes to cleanable deeper and debar objects connected the ground. The robovac generates 3D maps of your home, and identifies things similar furnishings and adjacent pets. Through the app, you tin customize cleanings, and there’s besides synced video and dependable enactment to let you to speech to your pets, docket cleanings, and more, and it is compatible with astute location devices Alexa and Google Home. When archetypal mapping my tiny apartment, the vac didn’t privation to spell past definite rooms, and it took respective days to get it to make a implicit cleaning map. It has a hard clip going implicit tiny thresholds, yet avoiding cleaning the rooms altogether, and has thrown itself disconnected my stairs twice, causing the mop pads to popular off. Despite having intelligent entity detection, it inactive often tried to suck up oregon rotation implicit tiny objects connected the ground, similar shoes and favored toys. I emotion that this combo vac-mop self-cleans and empties, but for astir $1,000, I privation the astute features were smarter and the mapping was much accurate.

Dyson Car + Boat Handheld Vacuum for $250: Former WIRED reviewer Brenda Stolyar liked this handheld vacuum, designed specifically for sucking up ungraded and debris from your car and boat, positive bedding, furniture, and different awkward spaces. (Read our afloat reappraisal here).

Hoover HL4 Pet Upright Vacuum Cleaner for £130: While it is lone disposable successful the UK, Hoover’s HL4 successfully removed tons of feline hairsbreadth from my home. I unrecorded with a trio of cats, 2 of them long-haired, truthful a almighty vacuum is essential. The HL4 is sadly corded (7.6 meters), but astatine astir 240 aerial watts it was almighty capable to assistance particulate and hairsbreadth that my lightweight cordless vac and robot vac had missed. The astute plan easy converts into a portable vacuum, and it comes with a favored instrumentality and crevice tool. The favored instrumentality proved adept astatine lifting hairsbreadth from the couch, stairs, and feline beds, though it didn’t rather person the grunt to region each strand. There’s a useful vent to trim suction for mats and blankets. The 1.2-liter bin is casual to region and empty, though not without releasing a particulate cloud, and the Anti-Twist level caput seems to cod considerably little tangled hairsbreadth than different vacuums. —Simon Hill

Not Recommended

Eufy Robo Vac 11S Max a achromatic discshaped instrumentality connected apical of a carpeted floor

Eufy RoboVac 11S Max for $150: Our esteemed competitors astatine places similar The Strategist and Wirecutter loved this inexpensive robovac, truthful I bought 1 for myself earlier moving into my caller flat with 2 cats. And I person to say, I don't hold with them. Yes, this robovac is importantly cheaper than astir others and has mostly bully ratings, but I person thing bully to accidental astir it too that it is capable to spell nether furnishings and suck up favored hairsbreadth I different wouldn’t beryllium capable to. Its navigation strategy is random, it doesn't person an app (but it does travel with a distant power to nonstop it to a circumstantial spot oregon docket cleanings), it’s loud, and it tends to beryllium attracted to cords. It has utmost trouble traversing adjacent insignificant tallness differences, similar the tiny sheet of wood betwixt the hallway and bath door. But astir of all, it is needlessly hard to bare the bin, and astir intolerable to detangle each of the hairsbreadth and fur from the barroom oregon spinning brushwood beneath. There’s gross hairsbreadth that volition astir apt inactive beryllium wrapped astir the mechanics until the time I americium enactment into the ground. This cursed happening volition outlive america all, I fear.

I tested these favored hairsbreadth vacuums for a week if not much (I’ve been utilizing some the Dyson cordless and handheld for months now), and I’ve utilized them connected astir each aboveground successful my house—including the feline trees and down my 2 cats’ litter box. When investigating began, I lived successful a ample location with 3 cats and a canine (more hairsbreadth successful a larger area), and for the second fractional of testing, I lived with 2 cats successful a tiny flat (slightly little hairsbreadth successful a smaller country with little places for hairsbreadth to hide).

I besides tested each attachment connected occupation areas similar carpeted stairs, crevices of aerial vents, a high-pile rug, and hardwood floors. Not each favored hairsbreadth vacuums are created alike, and they alteration rather a spot successful their effectiveness connected antithetic surfaces and with antithetic attachments. I acceptable these up, charged ’em, and vacuumed with them until they died, noting tally time, power, effectiveness, and easiness of emptying the bin and cleaning the filter.

It seems similar a batch of brands volition slap the words “pet hair” onto a merchandise and marketplace it arsenic specified without truly specifying wherefore oregon however it’s effectual for favored hair. Of course, I tested those to spot if they enactment their metaphorical vac mouths wherever their wealth was. On the flip side, I besides tested immoderate that were good rated for wide efficacy but not marketed toward pets—like the Roborock Saros 10R, a pricey robovac that uses AI mapping and tin place pets adjacent and quiescent its motor.

Speaking of, vacuums and pets are inherently antithetical. Vacuums are a indispensable evil to combat favored hair, but your pets volition apt beryllium frightened of them. If my feline Basil had opposable thumbs, I cognize he’d beryllium leaving hatred comments connected this article. Aside from the robovac picks (which for immoderate crushed my cats don’t mind), my feline Basil had a mild cardiac lawsuit each clip I tested the different vacs connected this list. So on with effectiveness and suction, I besides took into information loudness, arsenic good arsenic however casual the merchandise is to handle.

Generally though, erstwhile buying for a favored hairsbreadth vacuum, look for suction power, bin capacity, attachments, and benignant of bristle oregon Motorbar—figure retired what’s going to beryllium doing the existent picking up of dust, dander, and favored hair. I recovered that conical bars similar the ones connected definite Dyson models enactment good to not get tangled, and dual brushes similar connected the Ryobi enactment unneurotic to efficaciously prime up more. Also work reviews from existent radical with real, furry pets, but cognize that nary 2 pets are alike. Take into information what benignant of shedder you unrecorded with, and what benignant of abstraction needs cleaning; a robovac whitethorn not beryllium champion for a location with aggregate flights of carpeted stairs.

Power up with unlimited entree to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting and exclusive subscriber contented that's excessively important to ignore. Subscribe Today.

Read Entire Article