Dyson V15 Detect
Best overall cordless vacuum for pet hair
iRobot Roomba J7 Plus
Best overall robot vacuum for pet hair
Black & Decker Dustbuster Advanced Clean
Best handheld vacuum for pet hair
Shark Rocket Pet Pro
Best value cordless vacuum for pet hair
iRobot Roomba i3 Plus Evo
Best value robot vacuum for pet hair
What is the best vacuum for pet hair?
We love our pets, but the hair, dust and other debris that these furry friends leave behind is not so great. This is why some of the best vacuum manufacturers have dedicated so many resources to creating robot and stick vacs that are specially tuned to try and collect as much of the mess pets leave behind as possible. We’ve spent hours testing dozens of vacs from cordless to the robotic variety to find the best vacuums for pet hair so you can enjoy having your pet in your home but not their hair. At the top of this list is the Dyson V15 Detect, which also happens to be one of the overall best cordless vacuums for 2024.
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The Roomba J7 Plus features a self-emptying docking station and a fantastic obstacle avoidance system.
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Like
- Excellent obstacle detection
- Great at avoiding pet waste
Don’t like
- No built-in mop
- Pricey
Like Dyson, Roomba has been synonymous with robot vacuum cleaners for years now. While the Roomba J7 Plus isn’t the newest model, it is still highly regarded as one of the best robot vacuum cleaners for pet hair on the market today. Though the robot vacuum still commands a high price tag, it does its best to earn its keep in your home with some great features that help ensure that no pet hair escapes.
Along with seeking out and picking up pet hair from your floors, the AI-powered cameras and sensors are tops at avoiding obstacles and the fear-inducing pet defecation that can, at times, end up in the path of a robot vacuum. With the iRobot Roomba J7 Plus and its host of smart sensors, it will dodge the stinky mess and keep on getting the rest of the debris on the floor.
While the Roomba J7 Plus does not offer a built-in mop to shine up your floors, you won’t have to mess with emptying the dustbin each time it finishes picking up all the hair your furry friend left behind. The docking station that recharges the vacuum is also where the J7 Plus self-empties the debris it picks up so it’s ready to go again the next time it’s called upon.
Like
- Very lightweight
- Easy-to-empty dust bin
- Strong suction power
Don’t like
- Lengthy charging time
Sometimes, the mess that needs to be picked up doesn’t require a heavy hitter like a robot vacuum or your full-size cordless vac. For these times, using one of the best handheld vacuums to quickly take care of the ball of fluff is the best solution. We recommend the Black & Decker Dustbuster Advanced Clean vacuum.
At less than 4 pounds, this balanced and compact vacuum is easy to carry with you from room to room and suck up those little messes. With the included attachments, crevice tool and flip-up brush, you’ll be able to reach those bits of debris behind the couch, in the couch cushions and other tight spots. In our lab testing, we found the Black & Decker Dustbuster Advanced Clean was more than capable of getting both the larger pieces of test debris as well as the small sand particles, all of which are easily discarded from the dustbin when you’re done cleaning.
Unfortunately, this vac’s battery life is not long and it takes up to six hours to get it back to full when placed on the included wall-mounted charging base.
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iRobot created an affordable and effective robot vacuum in the Roomba i3 Plus Evo that is great at picking up pet hair in homes.
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Like
- Good price
- Self-emptying base station
- Limited brush tangles
Don’t like
- No mop feature
- Lacks sensors to avoid pet waste
Getting an excellent robot vacuum that is going to pick up all the hair left behind by your pets doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money. The iRobot Roomba i3 Plus Evo is a perfect example of this, as it can intelligently make its way through your home, picking up pieces of debris without issue. The unique brush system does a solid job of avoiding tangles so it can continue cleaning at full force.
Once the robo vac has finished cleaning, it will return to the base station to recharge and empty the onboard dustbin on its own. This prevents you from needing to empty it each time, so it can be ready to clean again. The Roomba i3 Plus Evo scored well in our lab testing, with about a 78% average score across hardwood, low-pile, and midpile carpet surfaces picking up both large and small grains of debris. You may also miss not having a mopping function on the robot vacuum, but if you can get by without that, the i3 Plus Evo is a winner.
Cordless, handheld, or robot we’ve tested dozens to find the best vacuum for pet hair on the market.
Floor care is a broad category these days with seemingly a tool dedicated to nearly any way you want to get your floors sparkling. While there is still a place for a plug-in style vacuum, but with advances in battery technology, wire-free devices are far more convenient.
When considering a cordless stick-type vacuum, you will get the best results when using it on hard surfaces. This is mostly due to the fact that the cleaning head is much lighter than that of a cord-style vac and struggles to stay pressed to the surface. But that lightweight is exactly what makes these devices so great. Being able to easily move from room to room, literally cleaning from top to bottom, you can get much more done. An excellent cordless vacuum can be the perfect tool to get pet hair picked up from all over the house, and it won’t wear you down in the process.
The Deebot Osmo T8 from Ecovacs is a vacuum that is highly capable of doing a great job of cleaning up your home without being overly expensive.
Whether something is expensive or not is largely in the eye of the beholder. Though we do offer what is considered to be value options on this list, you are still looking at a minimum of a few hundred dollars to get a great vacuum for pet hair. That is the out-of-pocket cost, then you have to consider the cost of your time.
Using a stick vac will require you to physically be involved in the cleaning process by walking around and pushing the vacuum around to pick up the mess caused by your pet. Whereas a robot vacuum will cost you more than most cordless vacuums, you won’t have to be involved in the cleaning process nearly as much. This is what is considered a value proposition. If saving $100 or more upfront is the most important thing to you, then look at the lower-cost items on this list or save even more money with a product from our best cheap vacuums list.
But if time is more important to you, then picking up a robot vacuum, which is usually more expensive than cordless options, is the way to go. You’ll have trade-offs with this style of vacuum compared to a stick vac, but you can utilize the time saved for other things.
Floor type
Here at CNET we put all of our vacuums through multiple rounds of testing to ensure we offer the best advice to you.
How we test robot vacuums
Our method for evaluating robot vacuums is straightforward, yet grueling. There are two types of tests we run. The first trial is to figure out how well a robot covers the floor while it’s cleaning. We built an industry-standard testing room as specified by the International Electrotechnical Commission just for this purpose. The IEC is an international standards body responsible for managing robot vacuum testing procedures, among other things, for vacuum manufacturers.
We test robot vacuums on three types of floor surfaces.
We control for the specific nozzle width of each vacuum, too. We constructed an adjustable tool to soil our test floors. It lets us lay down a strip of a precise area of soil to match the nozzle dimensions for every robot. The mass of soil isn’t chosen at random either. We measure a proportional amount that’s related to the flooring material, type of debris, plus each vacuum’s nozzle width.
We test for cleaning prowess for small particles (sand) and larger particles (black rice).
Our rice-based, medium-size particle test didn’t show enough differentiation between each cleaner, which says they can all handle larger particles without trouble. For fur removal for pet owners, we judged anecdotally.
How we test cordless vacuums for pet hair
Suction power for robot vacuums and stick vacs is calculated differently, making it challenging to compare head-to-head. However, you can use each type of measuring method to help inform you how much suction each style of cleaning tool offers. Robot vacuums use units of Pascal or “Pa” to indicate the suction power for these devices, with a range between 850 and 12,000 PA, with most averaging between 3,000 and 6,000 Pa.
For stick vacs, the standard unit of measurement is air watts, or “AW,” to give consumers an idea of the vacuum’s suction power. AW combines water lift and airflow methodologies and is recognized by the American Society of Testing and Materials.
