While robot vacuum cleaners aren't yet as powerful as our cordless and upright counterparts, they can be some of our biggest helpers when it comes to cleaning up after our pets.
I'm Homes & Gardens' home tech editor and resident vacuum expert. I've canvased dozens of pet-owning members of the public to better understand how to deal with pet hair at home, and one fur-banishing solution came up again and again: owning one of the best robot vacuums.
Having a robot vacuum to deal with the daily maintenance pets bring will help keep floors clean, and avoids the build-up of hair and fur that is such a challenge to remove. This approach means we can rely less on our best vacuums for pet hair, and spend less time digging out the fur that gets so stuck in our floors and carpets.
The quick list
The best robot vacuum for pet hair
The latest flagship from eufy performs even better on pet hair than a canister vacuum, with a mop that deep cleans your floors to clean up muddy paw prints and then cleans and dries itself so it doesn't end up smelling like a wet dog. During six weeks of testing and use, it never once got tangled with hair and pulled handful after handful of cat hair out of the carpets.
Runner-up best robot vacuum for pet hair
This powerful and stylish vacuum made light work of fur and human hair, even on carpets, which is rare for a robot vacuum. And like the Omni S1 Pro, it avoids hair wrapping around the brushroll when cleaning.
Best value robot vacuum for pet hair
As it's now a few years old, the iRobot Roomba j7+ is a few hundred dollars cheaper than it once was, but it still offers exceptional performance when dealing with pet hair, and special navigation to avoid accidental pet messes.
The best robot vacuums for pet hair in 2024
You can trust Homes & Gardens. Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing the latest products, helping you choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Best robot vacuum for pet hair
After over a month of use, the eufy Omni S1 Pro's roller and arms stayed completely free of fur or hair. Eufy promised anti hair-wrap technology, but seeing it work so effectively showed how much thought went into this robot's design.
Eufy's latest release is its newest flagship robot cleaner, the best of the best for the global brand. After testing, tester and head of Solved Punteha noted that the Omni S1 Pro leaves 'nothing on hard floors when it comes to pet hair and dust, and picks up much more than any canister vacuum I've owned on carpet.'
That's seriously impressive performance. Typically, robot vacuums don't fare too well on carpets, so the Omni S1 Pro's ability to tackle hair across all floor types in this way justifies the high price tag.
It's also an excellent mop, and any homes with frequent muddy paw prints or wet messes will love its deep cleaning ability. It's one of the few robot vacuums that uses a cleaning solution (rather than just clean water), meaning your floors are essentially sanitized on a regular basis. It couples that with patented technology to turn tap water in its clean tank into Ozone - electrolyzed water that successfully draws deep dirt and bacteria out of the floor.
'It tackled sticky, sugary liquid spills with ease, and much like the tests available to view on the manufacturer’s website, blasted through coffee, milk and ketchup stains with zero issue, residue or spread,' Punteha wrote.
Read more in our full eufy Omni S1 Pro review.
Runner-up best robot vacuum for pet hair
Our head of eCommerce Alex has tested more than 30 vacuum cleaners in his time, and the Roomba Combo j9+ is the best robot he's ever used. As the oldest name in the robot vacuum market, it's no surprise that Roomba produce some of the best models available, but the Combo j9+ really does surpass what we've come to expect from our automated cleaners.
'The Combo j9+ has two bumpy, silicone rollers that never gum up with hair,' Alex wrote. 'It always pulls hair out of the carpet and does a much, much better job that even some of the best vacuums for pet hair.'
The Combo j9+, while not perfect, performed excellently on different floor types when cleaning various different messes. 'Unlike other robots, none of the dirt stuck to the wheels, so it wasn't tracked through the rest of the house,' he noted, and its carpet-cleaning ability is '98% there.'
Like most robot vacuums, it still left some debris behind, whether it's a bit of lint or a piece of cereal. But this is to be expected for such a small cleaner, and the Roomba Combo j9+ is still an incredibly worthy helper for managing day-to-day messes and hair. We also love how the cleaning station doubles up as a low, stylish coffee table.
Read more in our full iRobot Roomba Combo j9+ review.
Best value robot vacuum for pet hair
This robot was once our favorite robot vacuum on the market, in part because it's such a good vacuum for pet hair. But as it's now a few years old, it sits comfortable in the more affordable part of the market, while still offering fantastic performance.
It did a great job picking up pet fur and dander from carpet, as well as mud tracked in from dogs' paws. It's fantastic at detecting and avoiding cables, chair legs, and pet toys, too.
It has lots of other great features for pets. Perhaps the best is that it can identify and avoid pet messes. Early robot vacuums couldn't do this, and it meant that if your pets left you a 'present' they would drive straight through it and track it into the carpet. This vacuum is fantastic at identifying these, and iRobot is so confident that it offers an aptly-named P.O.O.P. (Pet Owner Official Promise) that if one of these vacuums fails to spot a pet mess, iRobot will replace it for free.
Another great feature for pet hair is the Roomba j7+CleanBase docking station. This station not only charges the battery, but empties the dustbin automatically into a larger dust bag in a larger bin. That's great on its own terms, but it also means pet hair is sealed away in a bag, which is great if you suffer from allergies. Each dust bag has enough room for 60 days' worth of dirt, so you only need to empty it once every two months.
Our biggest criticism is that it can also be a little overzealous when spotting pet messes – our tester had a patterned carpet that kept being flagged as an obstacle.
Read more in our full iRobot Roomba j7+ review.
Meet the team
Punteha is head of Solved at H&G and previously editor of Real Homes. She's been a journalist and editor for the national press, specialising in consumer journalism for 17 years. She has two cats and tested the eufy Omni S1 Pro, our best robot vacuum for pet hair, as well as its sister bot the X10, the latest SwitchBot and Roomba (the reviews are coming!)
Alex oversees all our reviews content and ranked the vacuums in this guide. After graduating from Cambridge University he began work as a consumer journalist. He's tested vacuums ever since he started reviewing, so hundreds of hours spent testing dozens of vacuum cleaners, he's an expert in the best vacuum cleaners for your home.
Camryn Rabideau is a freelance writer and product reviewer who has been testing home goods, including cleaning tools, for several years. She tested the Shark AI Ultra 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum from her small homestead in Rhode Island.
Alex is a mom, wife, and journalist working out of Cincinnati, OH. She tested the s9+ for a month, putting it through multiple mapping programs, charging sessions, and cleaning cycles. She assessed how well it vacuumed her various types of flooring and if it had the skills to weave its way through chair legs, LEGO, and her kids' artwork.
Jaclyn was an eCommerce editor for Homes & Gardens, where she oversaw sleep content including mattresses and bedding. She tested a number of vacuums including the iRobot Roomba j7+.
How we test
At Homes & Gardens we like to get hands-on experience with all the products we feature. You can learn more how we test products in our dedicated guide, and there's a more specific rundown of our vacuum test process in how we test vacuums.
All of our vacuums are tried and tested in our test center and in our own homes for at least a month. When in the test center, we assess each vacuum on carpet, linoleum and wood flooring, two of the most common types of hard floor. We test them with flour and sugar, which is a common kitchen spill but also a good proxy for dust and dead skin; cereal, which shows how well it picks up larger debris like crumbs and small stones; and most of all on old hair extensions, which demonstrates how well a vacuum can pick up hair, and whether or not hair gets stuck in its rollers.
Specific to robot vacuums for pet hair, we test in homes with dogs and assess how well the vacuum can pick up pet fur and dander on a wide range of surfaces. We take care to note each vacuum's ability to map out a room and avoid obstacles. We note whether each vacuum can fit under sofas and into corners, as well as clean along baseboards.
We test the vacuum cleaners for a number of weeks so that we know our tests aren't a one-off. In some instances, we are also fortunate enough to keep the vacuum cleaners after writing up the review so we can continue to learn about them over months or even years and share our findings with you as the vacuums pick up wear and tear over time.
Robot vacuums for pets FAQs
Do robot vacuums freak out pets?
It depends on the model and the pet. Most inexpensive, quiet models are fine with pets. They move slowly and don't make too much noise. However, if your dog is scared of vacuums, it will have similar issues with a robot vacuum as it would with a tradtional vacuum. Punteha van Terheyden, head of Solved tested the eufy Robot Vacuum Omni S1 Pro for review and gave it a 5/5 star rating for best robot vacuum and found her two cats just fine with it.
Do robot vacuums avoid pet waste?
The very best robot vacuums avoid pet waste, but not all robot vacuums can do this. If you're really worried about this, the iRobot Roomba j7+ is the best robot vacuum for avoiding pet waste.
Not every robot is good for pet hair, so I've only included the very best here. If you don't have pets, your options are are a lot broader. You'll find that some of the best robot vacuum are a lot cheaper and quieter than those featured in this guide, because they don't need to have the power of these robots.
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