The Best Home Vacuum Cleaner
The best vacuum cleaner for home use is a versatile, easy-to-use tool. The right model will also be quiet, light and efficient.
This model offers excellent suction at a reasonable price and comes with a powerful anti-hair wrap floorhead, as well as an odor-neutralizing puck. It also comes with a huge bin that is easy to empty.
1. Power
A powerful vacuum cleaner can effectively manage household debris, making it easier to control messes. No matter if you have a pile of pet hair or a clogged kitchen drain, it should be able to suck up the mess with minimal effort. It will also be able to trap dust and inhibit bacterial development to ensure healthy, fresh air. The best model to meet your needs will depend on factors like floor type, household size and budget. The most commonly used 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 high-quality performance. It can remove pet hair and larger particles with ease, making it ideal for households with pets that are multiple or for large homes. It also comes with a simple-to-empty debris receptacle that prevents dirty clean-ups. The vacuum can also be used as a mop, allowing users to complete two tasks at once.
If you live in a home with a lot of furniture it's a good idea think about a more durable full-size, corded upright or canister vacuum. These models come with more powerful motors as well as a motorized floorhead that can handle carpets that are embedded and tough dirt. These vacuums are also available in various power modes to provide various suction strengths and a longer life battery. It's an excellent idea to choose the vacuum that has an HEPA filter if someone in your home suffers from allergies.
2. Flexibility
The most effective vacuum cleaners can tackle various tasks around the house including dusting, to deep-cleaning carpets. They are typically lightweight and easy to move. They should also come with several attachments to will meet your requirements.
Consider a vacuum designed to remove hair from pets if you own pets. These vacuums typically have a brush specifically designed to remove hairs from the floorhead and directs it into the dust container so that it does not block the brush roll or wrap around it.
The top-rated vacuums have intelligent features that can integrate with your home's systems or adjust to different types of floors and levels of dirt. This is especially important for those suffering from allergies, since these features prevent fine debris from recirculating throughout the air.
Vacuums are expensive, but the most effective ones go on sale at least once a year during major events such as Black Friday and Amazon's Prime Day. You can also find great bargains in the spring, when sales are planned by retailers to coincide with the annual spring cleaning.
The lifespan of a vacuum can vary depending on the model and how you use it. However, most of our top picks have an average lifespan of eight years. If you want to make sure that your device will last longer than competition, look for one with an extended warranty.
3. Simple to Use
A vacuum cleaner should be easy to maneuver and use, even during long cleaning sessions. A compact, lightweight vacuum cleaner that has easy-to-use controls, attachments, and large, non-emptying bins are all essential. This user-friendly design is made possible by a number of features, such as motorized power heads that can clean carpets and rugs better with a tall and wide floor head that can be used to reach under furniture, rotating nozzles for corner cleaning and LED lights that illuminate the walkway.
Shark Stratos, for example, is our top pick and was the simplest to move around. It also used the smallest amount of battery power during our tests. It also features an automatic adjustment of suction, an elegant LCD display with a battery indicator and the ability to switch between Eco, Auto and boost modes.
The Stratos also took in ground coffee, kibble and flour easily in our tests. It also handled low-pile carpet well, removing the sand and rice in only two passes. It also has a front brushroll that is soft enough to capture small particles and stop pet fur from spitting out and a rear brushroll which is rigid and digs into carpeting.
Likewise, the budget-friendly Kenmore Elite sucks up wet spills and messes that can be found on hard floors with the power of its dual brushroll design, but it's still lightweight enough to move up and down stairs as well as across a home without breaking the bank. It's also less maintenance-intensive than most upright models, with a HEPA filter that's easily removable and dust bags that can be changed once is full.
4. Versatility
The Levoit is a versatile model that can tackle most cleaning tasks. It lacks many of the advantages offered by more expensive models but it does have several key features that ensure it performs well for everyday use. For instance, it comes with multiple cleaning modes that vary suction power and battery run-time (including Eco) and an 8-foot hose that can reach above floors, and a large, easy-to-empty dust cup.
The brush roll is designed to capture and suck up hair without wrapping it around bristles making it a perfect option for families with pets that shed hair or even people who shed a lot. Its performance in standardized tests also showed that it can take on a variety of debris, including carpet with a low pile and hard floors and even remove sand, rice, and Cheerios from carpeting.
In addition to its versatility, the Miele Flex Vac has an impressive amount of power for a cordless vacuum cleaner. It was particularly effective in sucking hair from pets as well as larger particles like cereal. However, it struggled with more caked on debris such as car dust. It comes with a variety attachments including a motorized power-nozzle that can swiftly remove dirt and pet hair from upholstery.
5. robot vacuum cleaner on sale should last at least one hour without having to be recharged. This is crucial for cordless models because it lets you clean without stopping.
Our top pick Shark Stratos Cordless Vacuum, offers a lengthy battery life as well as impressive debris pickup. The three cleaning modes, Eco Auto, Boost and Eco let you control the power so that you can clean longer without draining your battery too fast. The vacuum comes with an elegant LCD screen that shows the status of your battery and how much time is left, and if there is a blockage.
This model is a fantastic option for households with hairy pets, as its no-tangle brushroll is very effective in picking up pet hair. It also is very effective in tackling dirt and dust. However, it has a difficult time to remove fine particles such as flour from flooring that is hard and cannot get coffee grounds from carpeting.
Tineco Floor One S7 Pro can also handle spills that are wet. This model is a bagged vacuum but has features such as an iLoop smart sensor that detects dirt and stains; self-cleaning that will dry the brush roll cleaner edges that get into corners and along baseboards and a battery that lasts 40 minutes, more than any other model we've tested.
6. Ease of Cleaning
The best vacuums make cleaning up messes easy. The Levoit LVAC-200 for instance is compact and lightweight but impressively powerful. It was able to take in everything from ground coffee to kibble and hair from dogs in our standard tests. The dual brushroll design captures pet hair and other debris, without spitting it out or wrapping it around the cleaner's head, which helps it stay clear of obstructions. The motorized tool can be used to remove embedded pet hair even from areas that are difficult to reach.
Another highlight is the Shark Stratos Cordless, which easily dealt with pet hair and other large debris in our standardized tests. The main floorhead comes with a soft brushroll to catch dust and other debris. The secondary floorhead, which has rigid bristles, can penetrate deeper into carpeting to tackle more difficult messes. The dust cup is plenty, and is easy to empty.
If you have a lot of carpet in your home, you may need to consider a full size upright or canister vacuum with a beater for deeper cleaning. Select a vacuum cleaner that is wet dry that can handle both flooring and the mess caused by food or water. Examples include the Miele Cat & Dog or the Henry Hoover. These vacuums are capable of handling the wide array of household debris from small crumbs to large messes and may have more advanced features than handhelds on this list.