The Best Home Vacuum Cleaner

The ideal vacuum cleaner for your home is a versatile, easy-to-use tool. The ideal model will be quiet, light and efficient.

This model offers excellent suction at a low cost and comes with a powerful anti-hair wrap floorhead and an odor-neutralizing puck. It also boasts a large bin that is very easy to empty.

1. Power

A powerful vacuum cleaner can efficiently handle household debris, making it easy to control messes. No matter if you have a pile of pet hair or a blocked kitchen drain, it should be able to clear the mess with a minimum of effort. It should also capture fine dust and stop the growth of bacterial, to ensure clean, healthy air quality. Selecting the best model for your needs depends on factors like floor type, household size and budget. The most common types include uprights, portable handheld vacuums light sticks, and practical robots.

The Black+Decker Flex Vac handheld vacuum is a lightweight device that has incredible force. It can remove pet hair and larger particles effortlessly, making it ideal for households with multiple pets or larger homes. It also comes with an easy to empty trash bin to avoid messy clean ups. The vacuum can even be used to mop and allow users to finish two tasks at once.

For households with lots of furniture it's a good idea consider a more durable full-size, corded upright or canister vacuum. These models typically feature larger motors as well as an electric floorhead that can tackle the toughest dirt and carpeting. They're also available with different power modes for varied suction and longer battery life. It's recommended to look for a vacuum with an HEPA filter if someone within your home suffers from allergies.

2. Flexibility

The most effective vacuum cleaners can tackle various chores around the home, from dusting to deep-cleaning carpets. They're typically light and easy to maneuver, and should also have a variety of attachments that will meet your needs.

If you have pets, think about a vacuum that's designed to handle pet hair. These models usually have a brush specifically designed to remove hair from the main floorhead and then directs it to the dust container so that it does not block the brush roll or wrap around it.

Some of the best value robot vacuum vacuums are equipped with smart robot features which integrate with your home systems or adjust for different floor types and dirt levels. This is especially important for people who have allergies, since these features can to stop fine particles from circulating throughout the air.

Vacuums can be a bit expensive, but the most effective ones go on sale a few times a year during major events, such as Black Friday and Amazon's Prime Day. There are also deals throughout the spring time, when retailers announce sales in anticipation of the annual spring cleaning of customers.

The life expectancy of a vacuum can be different, depending on its model and the type of use you put it through. However, most of our top robot vacuum cleaner-rated picks last for an average of eight years. If you want to last longer than the other contenders, pick one that comes with a long-term guarantee.

3. Simple to Use

A vacuum cleaner needs to be easy to operate and maneuver, even during a lengthy cleaning session. A lightweight, compact vacuum cleaner with convenient controls attachments, as well as an enormous, non-emptying bin are all crucial. This convenience is possible due to numerous features, including motorized power head that clean carpets and rugs more effectively as well as a tall and large floor head to reach under furniture, rotating nozzles for corner cleaning and LED lights that illuminate the walkway.

Shark Stratos, for example is our top choice and was the simplest to move around. It also utilized the smallest amount of battery power during our tests. It also has automatic adjusting suction as well as an elegant LCD display that has an indicator for the battery and the ability to switch between Auto, Eco and boost modes.

In our tests, the Stratos was able to soak up coffee grounds, kibbles and flour effortlessly. It also worked well on flooring with low pile by removing the sand, rice, and other particles with only a few strokes. It also has a soft front brushroll to capture fine particles and prevent pet hair from spitting out, and a stiff rear brushroll that digs into carpeting.

Likewise, the budget-friendly Kenmore Elite sucks up wet spills and messes that can be found on hard floors thanks to the power of its dual brushroll design. However, it's still lightweight enough to move up and down stairs, and across the home without breaking a sweat. It's also less maintenance-intensive than many upright models with an HEPA filter that is easily removed and a disposable dust bag which can be changed once fully stuffed.

4. Versatility

The Levoit is a highly versatile model, able of handling most cleaning tasks. It doesn't have many of the perks offered by pricier models however, it does come with many important features that ensure it performs well for everyday use. For instance, it comes with multiple cleaning modes that alter suction power and battery runtime (including Eco) as well as an 8-foot hose for reaching over floors, and a huge, easy-to-empty dust cup.

The brush roll is made for capturing and sucking up hair without wrapping bristles around it making it a good option for households with pets that shed hair or people who shed a lot. The results of tests conducted on it also proved that it is able to take on a variety of debris, including carpet with a low pile and hard floors; it even managed to remove sand, rice, and Cheerios from carpeting.

The Miele Flex Vac is a versatile cordless vacuum that also boasts impressive power. It was particularly effective at sucking up pet hair and also took larger particles such as cereal, though it did struggle with more caked-on debris like car dirt. It comes with a variety of attachments including an electric power-nozzle that can quickly remove dirt and pet hair from upholstery.

5. Battery Life

A quality vacuum cleaner for your home is one that lasts at least one hour before it needs to be recharged. This is crucial for cordless models, as it allows you to clean without stopping.

Our top pick is the Shark Stratos Cordless Vacuum is a great choice, with a long 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 the battery too fast. The intelligent vacuum cleaner has a sleek LCD screen that shows the state of your battery and how much time is remaining, and if there is a blockage.

This model is a great choice for households with pets that shed hair, since its brushroll is non-tangle and does an excellent job of collecting pet hair. It's also very effective at cleaning dirt and dust, although it struggled to pick up fine particles such as flour from hard floors and was unable to remove coffee grounds from carpeting.

If you're looking to tackle wet spills as well, the Tineco Floor One S7 Pro is a fantastic choice. It is a bagged vacuum but has features such as an iLoop sensor that can detect dirt and stains; self cleaning vacuum cleaner-cleaning that will dry the brush roll cleaner edges that get into corners and along baseboards and a battery that can last for 40 minutes, more than any other model we've tried.

6. Cleaning is easy

The top vacuum cleaners make it easy to deal with mess. The Levoit LVAC-200 is a light, compact vacuum cleaner that's also powerful. In our standard tests, it sucked everything from kibble to ground coffee to dog hair. Its dual brushroll design catches pet hair and other large debris without spilling it out or wrapping it around the cleaner's head, which helps it stay free of blocking. The motorized tool is able to eliminate pet hair that has been embedded, even from hard-to-reach areas.

The Shark Stratos Cordless is another top performer, because it handled pet hair and large particles easily in our standard tests. The main floorhead comes with a soft brushroll that can capture fine dust and debris. The second floorhead, that has bristles that are rigid, can penetrate deeper into carpeting to tackle more difficult mess. The dust cup can hold plenty, and is easy to empty.

If you have carpeting in your home, you might think about an upright that is full-size or a canister vacuum with a beater for more thorough cleaning. Select a vacuum cleaner that is wet dry that is able to handle flooring and the mess caused by water or food. Examples include the Miele Cat & Dog or the Henry Hoover. These machines can handle all kinds of household debris from small crumbs to larger messes, and may offer more advanced features than the handhelds on this list.