Compare Our Picks
Others Tested
Photograph: Molly Higgins
Smoture VAC01 Cordless Vacuum Cleaner for $150: This vacuum surprised me with how powerfully it was able to pick up fur and dust from hardwood floors, carpet, and furniture. Its dust cup was easy to open and empty, and it comes with a bunch of attachments to easily convert to a handheld vacuum and upholstery cleaner. It has 55,000 Pa of max suction power, with a 650-watt brushless motor to suck up embedded fur and hair in my high-pile carpet. It has an LED touchscreen where you can switch between eco, standard, boost, and auto modes, where it runs for up to 70 minutes in eco mode and 15 minutes in max mode. In auto mode, the vacuum intelligently adjusts suction power depending on the surface to conserve battery. It has a wall-mounted dock, or you can just plug in the detachable battery if you live in a small home like me. It comes with a 3-plus-foot flexible hose for crevices, a motorized upholstery brush, and a dual dust brush and crevice tool. It also stands upright on its own (which is a convenient plus), its dust canister is easy to empty, and the various attachments are easy to change—a gripe I’ve had as my Dyson ages and the attachments get harder to change out. For this price point, it’s a super solid vacuum, especially with its attachments for reaching pet hair on lots of different surfaces.
Photograph: Molly Higgins
Simplicity Vacuums Flash Mini Handheld Vacuum for $45: This handheld vacuum gets power through an electrical cord, which I’m not usually the biggest fan of since it limits mobility around the house. But it’s still one of the most powerful and efficient handheld vacuums I’ve ever tested. It has a 2-foot-long flexible hose to suck up pet fur and dander in hard-to-reach places, and comes with a myriad of attachments like a crevice tool (with an optional brush tip), upholstery brush, and dusting brush. I loved the attachments, which helped to brush fur up, and the hose helped me suck up hair that had settled in hard-to-reach spots. It was also able to suck up embedded fur in multiple high- and low-pile carpets around the house that others I’ve tested weren’t able to. It has dual filters, a washable dust cup filter for larger debris, and a foam exhaust filter for finer particles like dust and dander, which can lead to pet allergy symptoms. The only downside is that the vacuum is quite loud and a little clunky.
Photograph: Molly Higgins
Ryobi 18V One+ HP Advanced Stick Vacuum Kit for $399: It has powerful suction with cyclonic filtration, a brushless motor, an easily removable roller bar, and lights on the vacuum head to better see the debris. The dual plush (for hard floors) and brush rolls (for carpet) move together to suck the pet hair up into the dust cup without getting tangled. There’s also an easily removable roller bar, which makes dealing with fur tangles easier. Plus, the dust cup is also super convenient to empty. It can also be used as a handheld vac, which comes with crevice tools and a dust brush. This model is a bit heavier with its battery positioned right behind the handle, but the vacuum stands upright unsupported.
Photograph: Molly Higgins
Tineco Go Pet Cordless Vacuum for $176: As when I tested the Tineco Go Mini ($180) for my handheld vacuums guide, I was a bit underwhelmed by this vacuum specifically for pets. It has a slot for easy brush removal if hair gets stuck around the bars, which is a helpful thing to have when you’re dealing with pet (and human) hair. The lever and the angle of the lid for emptying are counterintuitive, and the first few times I emptied it, the debris went everywhere. It’s hard to distinguish between eco and power modes, and the vac blinked red and the brush stopped rotating when transitioning between surfaces. (It especially had a hard time on my thin runner rug.) It felt a bit heavier and clunkier than others as well. But it does have handy lights to illuminate debris and comes with attachments to make handheld cleaning a breeze.
Photograph: Molly Higgins
Mova P50 Pro Ultra Robot Vacuum for $799: This robot vacuum-mop combo has extendable side brush and mop pads to reach tight corners, a self-emptying dock station that empties dust and debris, and self-cleans and dries mop pads. It also uses an RGB camera and “intelligent dirt detection system” whose sensors identify messes to clean deeper and avoid objects on the ground. The robovac generates 3D maps of your home and identifies things like furniture and even pets. Through the app, you can customize cleanings, and there’s also synced video and voice interaction to allow you to talk to your pets, schedule cleanings, and more, and it is compatible with Alexa and Google Home. When first mapping my small apartment, the vac didn’t want to go past certain rooms, and it took several days to get it to create a complete cleaning map. It has a hard time going over small thresholds, eventually avoiding cleaning the rooms altogether, and has thrown itself off my stairs twice, causing the mop pads to pop off. Despite having intelligent object detection, it still often tried to suck up or roll over small objects on the ground, like shoes and pet toys. I love that this combo vac-mop self-cleans and empties, but for nearly $1,000, I wish the smart features were smarter and the mapping were more accurate.
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Photograph: Brenda Stolyar
Dyson Car + Boat Handheld Vacuum for $247: Former WIRED reviewer Brenda Stolyar liked this handheld vacuum, designed specifically for sucking up dirt and debris from your car and boat, plus bedding, furniture, and other awkward spaces. (Read our full review here).
Photograph: Molly Higgins
3i P10 Ultra for $400: This AI-enabled, self-emptying robovac with auto-extending mop pads spins at 220 rpm, and the vac has 18,000-Pa suction power. It uses lidar scans to 3D-map your home and AI to identify pets and maneuver around objects, increasing suction around things like pet food bowls and extra mopping for dirtier areas, like around litter boxes. It also has smart carpet detection, which boosts suction, and because it self-empties and cleans, the only thing you have to do is empty the dirty water and refill clean water in the tank. You can adjust the settings in the app, for things like customized cleaning schedules, routes, order, wetness, and suction power. Plus, it’s compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant. One problem I’ve faced is that I can’t share the app with anyone else in the home, so when they want to run it, they have to manually turn it on and off.
Hoover HL4 Pet Upright Vacuum Cleaner for £130: While it is only available in the UK, Hoover’s HL4 successfully removed lots of cat hair from my home. I live with a trio of cats, two of them long-haired, so a powerful vacuum is essential. The HL4 is sadly corded (7.6 meters), but at around 240 air watts it was powerful enough to lift dust and hair that my lightweight cordless vac and robot vac had missed. The smart design easily converts into a portable vacuum, and it comes with a pet tool and crevice tool. The pet tool proved adept at lifting hair from the couch, stairs, and cat beds, though it didn’t quite have the grunt to remove every strand. There’s a handy vent to reduce suction for mats and blankets. The 1.2-liter bin is easy to remove and empty, though not without releasing a dust cloud, and the Anti-Twist floor head seems to collect considerably less tangled hair than other vacuums. —Simon Hill
Not Recommended
Photograph: Molly Higgins
Eufy RoboVac 11S Max for $150: Our esteemed competitors at places like the Strategist and Wirecutter loved this cheap robovac, so I bought one for myself before moving into my new apartment with two cats. And I have to say, I don’t agree with them. Yes, this robovac is significantly cheaper than most others and has generally good ratings, but I have nothing nice to say about it besides that it is able to go under furniture and suck up pet hair I otherwise wouldn’t be able to. Its navigation system is random, it doesn’t have an app (but it does come with a remote control to direct it to a specific spot or schedule cleanings), it’s loud, and it tends to be attracted to cords. It has extreme difficulty traversing even minor height differences, like the small panel of wood between the hallway and bathroom door. But most of all, it is needlessly hard to empty the bin, and nearly impossible to detangle all of the hair and fur from the bar or spinning brush beneath. There’s gross hair that will probably still be wrapped around the mechanism until the day I am put into the ground. This cursed thing will outlive us all, I fear.
I tested these pet hair vacuums for a week, if not more (I’ve been using both the Dyson cordless and handheld for months now), and I’ve used them on nearly every surface in my house—including the cat trees and behind my two cats’ litter box. When testing began, I lived in a large house with three cats and a dog (more hair in a larger area), and for the latter half of testing, I lived with two cats in a small apartment (slightly less hair in a smaller area with fewer places for hair to hide).
I also tested every attachment on problem areas like carpeted stairs, crevices of air vents, a high-pile rug, and hardwood floors. Not all pet hair vacuums are created alike, and they vary quite a bit in their effectiveness on different surfaces and with different attachments. I set these up, charged ’em, and vacuumed with them until they died, noting run time, power, effectiveness, and ease of emptying the bin and cleaning the filter.
It seems like a lot of brands will slap the words “pet hair” onto a product and market it as such without really specifying why or how it’s effective for pet hair. Of course, I tested those to see if they put their metaphorical vac mouths where their money was. On the flip side, I also tested some that were well rated for overall efficacy but not marketed toward pets—like the Roborock Saros 10R, a pricey robovac that uses AI mapping and can identify pets nearby and quiet its motor.
Speaking of, vacuums and pets are inherently antithetical. Vacuums are a necessary evil to combat pet hair, but your pets will likely be scared of them. If my cat Basil had opposable thumbs, I know he’d be leaving hate comments on this article. Aside from the robovac picks (which for some reason my cats don’t mind), my cat Basil had a mild cardiac event each time I tested the other vacs on this list. So along with effectiveness and suction, I also took into consideration loudness, as well as how easy the product is to handle.
Generally though, when shopping for a pet hair vacuum, look for suction power, bin capacity, attachments, and type of bristle or Motorbar—figure out what’s going to be doing the actual picking up of dust, dander, and pet hair. I found that conical bars like the ones on certain Dyson models work well to not get tangled, and dual brushes like on the Ryobi work together to effectively pick up more. Also read reviews from real people with real, furry pets, but know that no two pets are alike. Take into consideration what kind of shedder you live with, and what type of space needs cleaning; a robovac may not be best for a house with multiple flights of carpeted stairs.
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