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When equipped with one of the best vacuums for pet hair, it's easier to overlook the constant clean-up that stems from our beloved cats and dogs. The best pet vacuums can stand up to hair, debris, and food bits while handling other everyday messes. Following characteristics we like in the best vacuums, they will have powerful suction, advanced filtration, brushrolls that resist tangling with hair, and even accessories targeted specifically for cleaning hair.
The Business Insider Reviews team tested over 30 of the best vacuums for pet hair to evaluate how they clean an assortment of cat and dog hair, cat litter, flour, coffee grounds, and Cheerios on carpeting, hardwood floors, and furniture. The best vacuum for dealing with pet hair is the Shark Stratos Cordless Vacuum, an overall solid performer with a unique dual-brushroll construction that easily suctions up debris large and small with up to 60 minutes of runtime. For those on a budget, the Bissell CleanView Swivel Rewind Pet Upright Bagless Vacuum is a powerful and reliable upright with easy swivel steering and special pet tools for cleaning upholstery.
Read more about how Insider Reviews tests and research home products here.
Our top picks for the best vacuums for pet hair
Best overall: Shark Stratos Cordless Vacuum - See at Amazon
Best budget: Bissell CleanView Swivel Rewind Pet Vacuum Cleaner - See at Amazon
Best for large spaces: Dyson Outsize Cordless Vacuum - See at Best Buy
Most powerful: Dyson Ball Animal 3 Upright Vacuum Cleaner- See at Amazon
Best robot vacuum: Shark Detect Pro Self Empty Robot Vacuum - See at Amazon
Best canister: Miele Classic C1 Cat & Dog Vacuum - See at Amazon
Best handheld: Black+Decker Dustbuster AdvancedClean Cordless Handheld Vacuum (model CHV1410L) - See at Amazon
Best overall
It's no surprise that our best vacuum overall, and our favorite cordless, too, is also our top pick for tackling pet hair. The Shark Stratos cordless vacuum offers tremendous suction power with three cleaning modes, easy maneuverability, and, thanks to Shark's anti-hair wrap technology, won't leave hair wrapped around the brush roll.
In our standardized tests on hardwood and carpet, the Shark Stratos easily picked up kibble, ground coffee, lentils, dog hair, and everyday household dirt. The Stratos incorporates a dual brushroll design: a soft front brushroll captures fine particles and stops larger debris from spitting out, and a back brushroll with rigid bristles that gets deep into carpeting and pulls up dirt. For larger particles, it quickly and efficiently suctions them right up, while very fine substances like flour did require a few extra passes.
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The Shark Stratos has three cleaning modes: eco, boost, and CleanSense IQ. The latter uses an infrared sensor to automatically increase or decrease power depending on the amount of debris it's picking up and distinguish between floor types. It also features LED headlights to gently light up the cleaning path ahead of you and a digital display with a battery life indicator.
Thanks to its bendable stick and swivel head design, the Shark Stratos is very easy to maneuver and easily slides underneath low spots like the bed or sofa.
The Stratos incorporates Shark's odor-neutralizing technology, which adds a scent to mask odors and leave floors smelling fresher. Two testers of Shark products with the feature did not particularly love this extra or expressed a plan to purchase the replacements once the cartridges lost their scent.
For accessories, the Stratos comes with a Duster Crevice Tool and Anti-Allergen Brush for removing dust from sensitive surfaces, but it surprisingly does not come with the pet-multi tool, which is available separately for cleaning upholstery.
Read our Shark Stratos Cordless Vacuum review for more details and our full guide to the best cordless vacuums for more recommendations.
Best budget
The CleanView Swivel Rewind was one of three of the best vacuums for pet hair that picked up all the pet hair on all of the surfaces in our tests. Also, the hair didn't get tangled in the brush.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the four vacuums I tested that cost less than the Bissell CleanView Swivel Rewind Pet Vacuum Cleaner (model 2254) performed poorly. I can't recommend any of them. For around $150, the Bissell has powerful suction and good performance at a value price.
While its ability to pick up other debris was just average on carpeting and furniture, it did exceptionally well on hardwood. It picked up all of the cat litter and Cheerios on every surface. It struggled with the coffee grounds on carpeting and only did a so-so job of collecting flour in all of the tests.
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I appreciated how simple the Bissell CleanView Swivel Rewind was to use. The swivel head makes it easy to maneuver with one hand. The cord never got in my way thanks to the easy retraction feature (the "Rewind" in the name), and since it's upright, I didn't have to support the weight of the vac. I just guided it as it made quick work of messes. And the hose detached effortlessly to reach elevated areas.
However, I had difficulty emptying the dust bin without getting my hands dirty or inadvertently sending gunk flying outside the trash can. Your best bet is to release the trap-door mechanism with the bottom inside your trash receptacle.
Read our full guide to the best cheap vacuum cleaners.
Best for large spaces
The Dyson Outsize vacuum is designed to clean large areas with an 11.5-inch-wide cleaner head pick up more debris in a single pass. It is the only cordless vacuum on the market with a half-gallon dust bin, meaning you can cover more ground and pick up copious amounts of fluffy pet hair without pausing to empty it. The Outsize boasts a 60-minute battery life, though some editions of the Outsize, like the Dyson Outsize +, come with two batteries so you can keep cleaning while the other charges and includes a Laser Slim Fluffy™ cleaner head, which illuminates floors with a green laser to show hidden dust.
This Dyson vacuum was the best vacuum for pet hair on every surface in our tests without getting tangled. This is in part due to the Digital Motorbar cleaner head (found on many of the best Dyson vacuums) that has plastic detangling vanes to keep hair from wrapping. It also did great on hardwood and carpeting, picking up all debris except a trace of coffee grounds on carpets and nominal amounts of flour on both surfaces. The Outsize is easy to maneuver thanks to a spherical wheel on the cleaner head. I could move it from side to side by gently rotating my wrist. The non-Dyson vacuums I tested required more effort to turn.
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The Outsize was less impressive but still good in handheld mode on furniture, leaving behind about 5% of the cat litter and flour with the mini-motorized tool. At about 8 pounds, it's heavy in the handheld configuration, and I didn't like that you had to keep the power button depressed to run the vacuum. This limited the positions I could hold, and it could start to feel heavy during above-floor cleaning tasks.
The Dyson has a trapdoor mechanism for emptying the dust bin, so you can avoid coming in contact with debris. However, you have to remove the attachments before emptying the bin, and you may miss your trash receptacle if you don't position the dust bin just right.
Recently, the Outsize has been sold as the Outsize Plus, which refers to the number of attachments, but the specs and performance are effectively the same if there's any confusion over which to choose. Stock has also been volatile as of late, but I continue to recommend it because there's really nothing comparable in capacity from competitors who want a cordless that can clean for extended periods of time without pausing to empty the bin.
Most powerful
For cleaning up after constant shedding fur or kitty litter tracked around the house, a blast of powerful suction is what you need to keep your home dust and dander-free. The Dyson Ball Animal 3 is particularly effective on thick carpeting, with stiff bristles that dig deep into the fibers to pull out hair and dirt and resist hair wrap around the brush roll. It also performed well on hard floors, picking up both large pieces of debris like cereal and fine particles of flour.
Camryn Rabideau/Business Insider
At 17 pounds, this upright vacuum isn't necessarily lightweight for carrying up and down stairs, but its unique ball design at the base swivels to help facilitate maneuverability. It has three suction settings that you can adjust via a slider on the floorhead. If you have trouble pushing the vacuum, adjusting the suction settings will typically get you on your way again. The spacious 0.45-gallon dust bin can handle large amounts of pet hair and empties via a button on the handle. The Dyson's washable post-motor filter traps allergens as small as 0.3 microns and should be cleaned once a month.
The basic version of this vacuum comes with two tools: a combo crevice and dusting brush and a stair tool. Models like Extra and Complete offer a more comprehensive accessories package with pet-specific options like a no-tangle motorized upholstery tool, carbon fiber dusting brush, and even a pet grooming brush. These accessories connect with the hose, which stretches to 15 feet. However, our reviewer found it stiff, requiring extra effort to keep it extended while the vacuum was running.
Read our guide to the best upright vacuums.
Best robot vacuum
While a robot vacuum won't likely eliminate all your vacuum responsibilities, it helps maintain your space and can help sweep up daily dust and accumulated pet hair.
For households with pets, features like obstacle avoidance and no-go zones become must-haves for avoiding errant dog toys, food bowls, and even accidents. That's why we like the Shark Detect Pro Self-Empty Robot vacuum, which also has an accompanying auto-empty dust bin to automate cleaning further.
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The Shark Detect Pro features a number of technologies dubbed "DirtDetect Technology, FloorDetect Technology, EdgeDetect Technology, NeverStuck Technology," which are designed to flag and clean dirty areas, identify changes in flooring, master edge cleaning and cliffs, and not get stuck on obstacles or thresholds. For instance, when identifying a mess and DirtDetect is activated, the indicator on the top of the device changes from green to blue to reflect that it has found a mess. Giving this spot special attention, it cleans in a figure-eight maneuver before changing back to green and continuing on.
The cleaning performance was right on par with what we expected and didn't require any babysitting as it journeyed across a landscape of hard floors, carpets, and doorways, though it did struggle a bit on shag carpeting. The Shark Detect Pro was also able to navigate around and avoid an obstacle course of toys without getting stuck or suctioning up something it shouldn't. When the onboard dust bin is full, the Detect Pro returns to its docking station to unload into the auto-empty dock, which can hold up to 60 days of dirt, though that figure depends on how often you run your vacuum and how dirty your floors are.
The Detect Pro uses lidar and 3D mapping technology to create a floorplan of your space and efficiently clean it. In the Shark app, you can edit your floor plan, create no-go zones, set schedules, and change settings.
For a more budget-friendly robot vacuum option, we previously recommended the Bissell Spinwave Robot Vacuum and Mop. It can consistently be found on sale for under $200, works quietly, and has swappable tanks to switch between vacuum and mopping. However, it offers no mapping or obstacle avoidance features, has limited app use, and frequently gets stuck.
Read our Shark Detect Pro Self-Empty Robot Vacuum review for more detai
