If you're a dog or cat owner, one of the best robot vacuums for pet hair could be a major game-changer. As much as we love our furry friends, the stray hair that gets matted into carpets and turns into fluff balls that float across hard floors, we could do without. This is where a robovac can come to the rescue.
The robot vacuums featured here have all best tested thoroughly by experienced reviewers, and have earned a spot in this guide because they're particularly good at tackling pet hair. They'll efficiently pull hair out of carpets and whisk it off hard floors, and direct that hair into the dustbin rather than letting it tangle around the mechanisms. Most have a self-empty mechanism and dock to save you having to empty them constantly, some mop as well as vacuum (ideal for tackling muddy paw-prints) and many have other special features that are useful to pet owners.
That's on top of the features we look for in the best robot vacuums in general. All of these models will clean the floors on demand, or regularly at a set time, and return to base once the job is complete. As such, they're perfect for staying on top of regular, light cleaning, so the pet hair and dander never builds up. Generally, they don't have enough suction for a deep clean of ingrained dirt – for that, consult our ranking of the best vacuum cleaners for pet hair, which covers the whole market. But for now, let's take a look at the best robot vacuums for pet hair...
Best robot vacuum for pet hair 2024, tried and tested
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Best robot vacuum for pet hair: quick list
Best overall
The J7+ is our top pick for pet owners – this robovac's rubber rollers grip pet hair and pull it out of carpets, and the obstacle avoidance is excellent too.
Best mop-vac
As well as handling pet hair with ease, this robovac's hot water mop function makes it a top choice for those who want to be able to scrub muddy paw prints from their hard floors.
Best premium
It's a little pricier, but this robot vac's cleaning powers are superb. It'll keep your carpets clear of hair, and an onboard camera/mic lets you check in with your pet while you're out, too.
Best budget
This wallet-friendly robot vac handles pet hair impressively well for its low price. It's not as fully-featured as other models here, but it tackles the basics well.
Best for long hair
Another premium, fully-featured option, the S8 Pro's rubber rollers direct hair straight into the bin, rather than letting them clog the mechanism – perfect for long-haired pets.
The best robot vacuum for pet hair overall
The Roomba Combo J7 Plus is the best robot vacuum for pets, for a few reasons. Firstly, it delivers when it comes to suction. We found it offered fantastic pickup on both carpet and hard floors, and has the ability to suck up particles as small as 0.7 microns. This model intelligently detects how dirty your floor is and adjusts suction accordingly, to ensure a thorough and battery-efficient clean (although we did find it the side brushes could extend cleaning time by flicking dirt across the floor).
Second, alongside those vacuum powers, it comes with mop functionality – which means it's not just for hair; it'll deal with muddy pawprints on your hard floor, too. The retractable mop pad recognizes when its on a hard floor, and tucks away when it's not needed. (If you don't need this function, there's a version without mopping capabilities – the iRobot Roomba j7+ – but at time of writing it was generally about the same price or more than the Combo version, which makes it less good value for money.)
Third, this robot vacuum comes with Roomba's Pet Owner Official Promise, which means it'll recognize and avoid pet messes, rather than spreading them about the house – an unfortunate possibility with lesser robovacs. It's P.O.O.P acronym ensures there's no confusion as to what we're talking about here.
We found the J7 Plus was super-responsive when using Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant to command that the vac avoid your furry friends, if it was beginning to head their way. The app, too, made the Combo J7 Plus easy to use, enabling us to set up the vacuum to map areas and set zones. In fact, our only real complaint is that while the cleaner is pretty quiet in operation, it's very noisy to empty.
Read our full iRobot Roomba Combo J7 plus review
Another excellent robot vacuum for pet hair
To be honest, it was a bit of a toss-up as to which model should sit at the top of our best robot vacuum for pet hair guide – the Ecovacs DEEBOT T20 is almost equally as good a choice as the Roomba at #1.
During our tests, we found it excelled at picking up lots of pet hair, as well as other general dirt and debris. The mapping is excellent, which means it'll vacuum in an orderly pattern and won't miss a spot, and the app is intuitive and provides lots of adjustment options. One USP here is that the DEEBOT T20 offers hot water mop pad washing, so the pads scrub the floors rather than just gently applying water. We found this worked well, so it'll be a bonus if your pets often track mud into the home.
It's not perfect – the object avoidance is above-average but not amazing, and, like most robovacs, it struggles with corner – but it's pretty close. Price-wise, it's generally in the upper-mid range and similarly priced to our #1 Roomba pick, so the one you go for might be determined by which is cheaper when you need to buy, more than anything else.
Read our full Ecovacs DEEBOT T20 Omni review
The best premium robot vacuum for pet hair
If you've got a bigger budget, the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is a high-spec, powerful robot vacuum with a useful USP for pet owners: it has an onboard camera that lets you keep an eye on your pets when you're not home, and a speaker so you can speak to them, too. It's ideal if you have a nervous (or naughty) four-legged friend.
Aside from its pet-spying capabilities, it delivers when it comes to cleaning too. In our tests, we tried its vacuuming abilities on fine dust, cookie crumbs and cereal, on carpets and hard floors, and found it tackled it all with ease. There are a few different power settings for suction, and you can set the S7 MaxV Ultra to automatically detect when it's going over carpet, and respond by adjusting from low to higher power modes. We have no doubts about its ability to take on pet hair.
The mopping capabilities are also a step above what most robot vacuums offer, in that it's capable of scrubbing rather than just sloshing water onto the floor.
Price-wise, it's an investment, but it could be worth it if you want those extra features. (Note: we're in the process of reviewing this robovac's successor, the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra, and will share our findings as soon as possible.)
Read our full Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra robot vacuum review
The best budget robot vacuum for pet hair
If you don't have tons of cash to splash, check out the Proscenic Floobot X1 – our pick of the best budget robot vacuum for pet hair. You can pick one up these days for around $300/£300, whereas most of our robot vacuum recommendations are twice that, or more.
For that significantly lower price, you'll need to make some compromises. On test we found it offered decent suction and coped fairly well with debris of different sizes, but pricier, higher-spec models will perform better on this front. It has an unusual approach of expelling hair and other detritus as a compact ball when it gets full up, to free up space for smaller dirt and dust – a quirk worth noting if you're dealing with pet hair. There's mopping as well as vacuuming capabilities and the bot will detect which kind of floor it's on and which cleaning method to use.
The mapping is okay but not amazing, coping better with open-plan spaces than more complicated rooms, and not always detecting things like pet food trays. There are also some limits to what you do remotely – for example, you can't instruct the Floobot X1 to start mopping if it's docked, because it identifies the dock base as a carpet. Our tester also had a few issues getting the Floobot X1 to maintain a Wi-Fi connection.
Those niggles aside, you're really getting a lot for the asking price – in terms of both performance and capabilities. The Floobot X1 is a good recommendation for basic maintenance, perhaps supplemented with extra deep cleaning with a manual machine. But if if you have a pet that sheds heavily, it probably won't be able to cope on its own. Check out your other budget-friendly options in our guide to the best cheap robot vacuums.
Read our full Proscenic Floobot X1 review
The best robot vacuum for long haired pets
If you have long-haired pets, check out the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra. Rather than bristles, this robovac uses a dual rubber roller to agitate and pick up the debris for your floor (the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra at #3 also uses a rubber roller, but there's only one rather than the two in the S8 Pro). In our review, our tester found this was especially good at preventing long hair from getting tangled up, and made maintenance easier too.
We were impressed with the pickup from this model, although like almost all robovacs, it's better at light cleaning than deep cleans of large bits of debris. The mop function is also very effective, although our tester felt there was minimal difference when switching scrubbing intensity levels.
Auto-emptying and a self-cleaning dock mean you'll barely need to lift a finger, and we also found the app intuitive and well-designed. Note: there's no camera or ability to talk to your pets through this robovac, as you can with the other Roborock model in our list (#3).
Read our full Roborock S8 Pro Ultra review
How we test robot vacuums for pet hair
Every robot vacuum for pet hair listed in this guide has been tested by one of our editors or contributors. We called upon robot vacuums from big brands such as iRobot, Bissell and Samsung, plus some smaller names such as Neato and Roborock, to test in our homes.
Not only did we put the robot vacuums through their paces on regular dirt, dust and fluff, but we also set them to task on some more challenging debris such as sweeping up oats or mopping up sauce from hard flooring.
Some of the key factors we evaluate include design, performance and battery life. We also compare how these models sit in a crowded market place on the basis of price, although note that robot vacuums better suited to tackling pet hair do command a higher ticket price.
We assess the performance of each robot vacuum for at least a few weeks, to give it enough time to map a home and become familiar with objects and obstacles in the space. At the end of the testing process, we rate each model for the key factors before awarding an overall score.
Where we're in a position to hang onto the robot vacuum, we do so to test performance over a longer period. In this case, we'll update relevant reviews after six months to one year.
Read more on how we test robot vacuum cleaners.
How to choose the best robot vacuum for pet hair
There are a few things that are worth considering when choosing the best robot vacuum for pet hair.
Suction power
If you have any kind of carpets or rugs, you need a robovac with decent suction to be able to effectively pull up hair and dander. Generally, robot vacuums aren't as sucky as manual vacuums, but modern machines are increasingly powerful. The spec you're looking for here is Pascals (Pa).
Although outright suction is an important factor, design also plays a key role here. For example, some of the models here also have rubber rollers rather than a brushroll, which helps with gripping and pulling up hair.
Anti-hair wrap features
If you have a long-haired pet, you'll want a robot vacuum that's designed to filter the hair directly into the bin rather than letting it clog the rollers. Hair wrapping can be a particular issue if you have a robovac with a spinning side brush for edges – some manufacturers have added hair cutting tools to remove hair from these, with varying degrees of success.
Dust bin size / self-empty function
As you might imagine, the dust bins housed on robot vacuums tend to be fairly small. If you have a shedding pet, it's probably worth opting for one that comes with a self-empty function. The down-side is that you'll need to make room for a bigger dock, but it means you won't be constantly emptying the bin yourself.
Object avoidance
Not related to pet hair, but it's definitely worth finding a robot vacuum with decent obstacle avoidance. You want something that's not going to try and vacuum up your pet, for one (some have a special pet mode that mean it's ultra-careful around objects). If you have a pet that sometimes makes a mess on the floor, your robot vacuum is also going to need to identify that reliably, in order to avoid said mess being painted around your entire house. Roomba has a dedicated P.O.O.P promise geared specifically towards this.
Mop function
Many robot vacuums also have a mop function. While it's not so much geared towards tackling pet hair, this can be very useful for general pet messes – muddy pawprints and so on – if you have hard floors in your home.
In-vac camera
Again, not geared towards pet hair, but some robovacs can now double up as a pet spycam. On-board cameras enable you to check on your pet when you're not home, and some have two-way microphones to allow you to speak to them.
Can robot vacuums cope with dog hair?
Some robot vacuums are powerful enough to effectively clear dog or cat hair. In general, robovacs don't have the same suction power as manual vacuums, which means they won't be as effective if you want to do a deep clean of ingrained hair. However, because they work autonomously, you can set them to run regularly (and perhaps more often than you'd want to vacuum manually!), preventing the hair from building up in the first place.
Is an auto-empty robot vacuum worth it?
For many people, yes. The onboard dustbins on robot vacs tends to be small, which means you might end up doing a lot of manual emptying if you don't go for an auto-empty option. This is especially true if it's going to be sucking up a lot of pet hair. However, if you're short on space, be aware that if you go for an auto-empty robovac, you'll need to make room for a much bigger dock. Auto-empty models will often be more expensive, too.
