The Best Home Vacuum Cleaner
The ideal vacuum cleaner for your home is a multi-functional, user-friendly tool. The ideal model will be quiet, light and efficient.
This pick offers great suction at a reasonable price it comes with a highly effective anti-hair wrap floorhead as well as an odor neutralizing puck. It also comes with a huge bin and is extremely easy to empty.
1. Power
A powerful vacuum cleaner can efficiently manage household debris and help to keep your mess under control. It should be able clean any mess, regardless of whether it's a clump of hair of a dog or a kitchen drain clogged. It should also collect fine dust and stop the growth of bacteria, ensuring clean, healthy air quality. Choosing the right model for your needs depends on factors such as floor type, household size and budget. The most common types include uprights, handheld vacuums that can be carried around, lightweight sticks and convenient robots.
The Black+Decker Flex Vac is a lightweight handheld vacuum that has an impressively powerful performance. It can remove pet hair and larger debris easily and is ideal for households with pets that are multiple or for large homes. It also comes with an easy to empty trash bin to avoid messy cleanups. The vacuum can also be used to mop and allow users to finish two tasks at once.
For households with lots of furniture, it's a good idea think about a more robust full-size corded upright or canister vacuum. These models typically have stronger motors and a floorhead with a motorized design to take on stubborn dirt and embedded carpeting. These vacuums are also available in a variety of power modes that offer a variety of suction capacities and a longer life battery. If anyone in your household suffers from allergies it's recommended for you to choose the vacuum with a HEPA filtering system.
2. Flexibility
The most effective vacuum cleaners can tackle a variety of chores around the home from dusting to deep-cleaning carpets. They are usually lightweight and easy to maneuver. They should also include several attachments to will meet your requirements.
Consider a vacuum designed to remove hair from pets if you own pets. These models typically have a dedicated power brush that siphons pet hair off the main floorhead, directing it into the dust container to ensure it doesn't get stuck or wrap around the vacuum's brush roll.
The best vacuums are equipped with smart features which integrate with your home systems or adjust for different types of flooring and dirt levels. This is particularly important for those with allergies, since these features help prevent fine debris from recirculating throughout the air.
Vacuums can be expensive however, they're on sale during major occasions such as Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day. You can also find some great bargains in the spring, when retailers plan sales to coincide with the annual spring cleaning.
The life expectancy of a vacuum can be different according to the model and the type of use it is put through. Most of our top-rated vacuums last for an average of eight years. If you want yours to last longer than the competitors, select a model that comes with a long-term guarantee.
3. User-Friendliness
A vacuum cleaner needs to be easy to use and maneuver even during a lengthy cleaning session. This means a light, compact body, easy controls and attachments, and an ample bin that does not require frequent emptying. This convenience is possible thanks to many features, including motorized power heads that can clean carpets and rugs better, a large and tall floor head that can be used to reach under furniture, rotating nozzles for corner cleaning and LED lights that illuminate the path.
Shark Stratos, for example, is our top pick and it was the easiest to move around. It also used the smallest amount of battery power during our tests. It also has an automatic suction adjustment as well as it has a sleek LCD screen with a battery indicator, and the ability for users to switch between Auto Eco and Boost modes.
In our tests, the Stratos picked up coffee grounds, kibbles and flour effortlessly. It also handled low-pile flooring well and was able to remove the sand, rice, and other particles with just a few passes. It also has a soft front-facing brushroll to capture tiny particles and prevent pet hair from spitting out, as well as a rigid rear brushroll that digs into carpeting.
The budget-friendly Kenmore Elite also has a dual brushroll design that picks up messes and wet spills from hard surfaces. It's light enough to be able to be carried to and from the stairs and across the home, without breaking the sweat. It's also easier to maintain than many upright models with a HEPA filter that's easily removed and dust bags that can be replaced once it's fully stuffed.
4. Versatility
The Levoit is an extremely versatile model, capable of handling the majority of cleaning tasks. It lacks many of the features offered by higher-end models but it does have many essential features that make sure it's suitable for everyday use: it has multiple cleaning modes that alter suction power and battery runtime (including Eco) and an 8-foot hose to reach over floors, and a massive easy-to-empty dust container.
Its brush roll is made to collect and remove hair without wrapping it around bristles making it a perfect pick for households with hairy pets or even humans who shed a lot. Its performance in tests demonstrated that it can take on a variety of debris, including low-pile carpet and hard floors. It even removed sand, rice and Cheerios.
cleaning robots is a multi-purpose cordless vacuum that has a powerful motor. It was particularly effective in sucking pet hair, and also picked larger particles such as cereal. However, it had trouble with more caked-on particles like dust from cars. It comes with a variety attachments, including a motorized power-nozzle that can swiftly remove pet hair and dirt from upholstery.
5. Battery Life
A quality vacuum cleaner for home use should last at least one hour without needing to recharged. For a cordless model, that's important because it allows you to take on cleaning tasks without stopping to start again.
Shark Stratos cordless vacuum is our top pick. It has a long battery life and a powerful debris pickup. The three cleaning modes Eco, Auto and boost, help you to manage the power so that you can clean longer without draining the battery too fast. The vacuum comes with a sleek LCD screen that shows the status of your battery, how much time is left, and if there is a clog.
This model is an excellent option for families with hairy pets, as its no-tangle brushroll is very effective in collecting pet hair. It's also extremely effective in tackling dust and dirt, although it struggled to remove small particles like flour from hard floors, and could not remove coffee grounds from carpeting.
If you want to tackle wet spills too then the Tineco Floor One S7 Pro is a great option. It is an all-in-one model that comes with features such as an iLoop sensor which detects dirt, stains and spills. It also features self-cleaning which dries out the brush roll. It also provides better edge cleaning to reach the corners and baseboards. The battery can last for 40 minutes, which is more than any other model that we tested.
6. Cleaning is easy
The most effective vacuums make cleaning up mess easy. The Levoit LVAC-200, for example is light and compact however, it is incredibly powerful. In our standard tests, it sucked everything from kibble and ground coffee to dog hair. Its dual brushrolls capture pet hair as well as other large particles without spilling them out or wrapping them around the cleaner's head. This helps it avoid blocking. The motorized tool can be used to get rid of pet hair embedded even from difficult-to-access areas.
The Shark Stratos Cordless is another standout, as it handled pet hair and large particles easily in our standard tests. The main floorhead is a soft front brushroll that captures fine dust and debris, while the secondary floorhead with rigid bristles reaches deeper into carpeting to catch larger messes. The dust cup is large and easy to empty.
If your house is heavily carpeted, consider an upright or full-size canister vacuum that comes with a beater bar for deeper cleaning sessions. Or, opt for a wet-dry vacuum, which can tackle the floors as well as messes caused by water or food, like the Miele C3 Cat & Dog or the Henry Hoover. These vacuums can take care of a variety of household debris, from small crumbs to bigger messes. They also have more advanced features than the handhelds in this list.