The Best Home Vacuum Cleaner
The ideal home vacuum cleaner is a multi-functional tool that is simple to operate and use. The best model must be light, efficient and quiet.
This pick offers great suction at a reasonable price and comes with a powerful anti-hair wrap floorhead as well as an odor neutralizing puck. It also has a large bin that is easy to empty.
1. Power
A powerful vacuum cleaner will efficiently manage household debris, making it easy to keep messes under control. If you're dealing with a heap of pet hair or a blocked kitchen drain, it must be able to clear the mess with minimal effort. It should also be able to capture fine dust and inhibit the growth of bacteria, ensuring clean healthy, healthy air. The right model depends on your budget, dimensions of your home and floor. The most commonly used types include uprights, handheld vacuums that can be carried around and lightweight sticks, as well as convenient robots.
The Black+Decker Flex Vac handheld vacuum is a lightweight device that delivers impressive force. It is perfect for households with multiple pets or large homes. It also comes with a simple-to-empty debris receptacle that prevents dirty clean-ups. The vacuum can be used to mop so that users can complete two tasks at the same time.
Take a look at a large upright or canister corded model for households with a lot of furniture. 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 powers to offer a variety of suction capacities and a longer life battery. It's recommended to choose an appliance with a HEPA filter if someone in your home is suffering from allergies.
2. Flexibility
The best vacuum cleaners are capable of tackling various tasks around the house from dusting to deep-cleaning carpets. They're usually lightweight, making them easy to move around, and should also offer a range of attachments that will meet your needs.
Consider a vacuum designed to deal with hair from pets if you own pets. These models typically have a separate power brush that siphons pet hair away from the main floorhead, and then directs it into the dust container to ensure it doesn't get stuck or wrap around the vacuum's brush roll.
Some of our 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 with allergies, as these features prevent fine debris from recirculating throughout the air.
Vacuums can be a bit expensive, but the best ones go on sale several times per year during major events such as Black Friday and Amazon's Prime Day. You can also find some great deals in the spring when retailers plan sales to coincide with the annual spring cleaning.
The lifespan of a vacuum varies depending on the model and how you make use of it. Most of our top-rated vacuums last an average of eight years. If you want to make sure yours will outlast the competition, look for one with an extended warranty.
3. Easy of Use
A vacuum cleaner must be easy to move and use, even for an extended cleaning session. A compact, lightweight vacuum cleaner with easy controls, attachments, and an enormous, non-emptying bin are all crucial. This ease of use is made possible by numerous options, including motorized power head that clean carpets and rugs better, a large and tall floor head that can reach under furniture as well as rotating nozzles for corner cleaning, and LED lights which illuminate the path.
For instance, our top pick in this category, the Shark Stratos cordless vacuum, was a breeze to maneuver and utilized the least amount of battery power during our testing. It also features 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.
The Stratos also took in kibble, ground coffee 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-facing brushroll which is soft to hold tiny particles and prevent pet fur from spitting out and a rear brushroll which is stiff and can dig 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, but it's light enough to move up and down stairs and across a home without breaking sweat. It's easier to care for than most other upright models too and comes with a removable HEPA filter and disposable dust bag that can be changed when it's full.
4. Versatility
The Levoit is a versatile model that can handle a variety of cleaning tasks. It might not have all the features found in more expensive models, but its primary features ensure that it is a good choice for everyday use. This includes an 8-foot hose which can reach over floors and an enormous dust cup that is easy to empty.
Its brush roll is made to capture and suck up hair without wrapping it around the bristles, making it an ideal pick for families with pets that shed hair or even humans who shed often. Its performance in tests showed that it could take on a variety of debris, including carpet with low pile and hard floors. It even removed rice, sand and Cheerios.
The Miele Flex Vac is a multi-purpose cordless vacuum that boasts impressive power. It was especially effective at sucking up pet hair, and also picked larger particles such as cereal. However, it struggled with more clogged-up debris such as car dust. It also has a wide variety of attachments, such as a motorized power nozzle that can make short work of pet hair and dirt that accumulates on upholstery.
5. Battery Life
A quality vacuum cleaner for home use should last at least an hour without needing to recharged. For a cordless model, that's important because it allows you to tackle cleaning sessions without stopping and start again.
Shark Stratos cordless vacuum is our top pick. It has an extended battery life as well as an impressive debris removal. The three cleaning modes, Eco, Auto and boost help you to manage the power so that you can clean for longer without draining the battery too quickly. The vacuum features an elegant LCD screen that displays the state of your battery, how much time is remaining, and if there is a blockage.
This model is ideal for households with furry pets as the no-tangle brushroll can effectively remove pet hair. It is also very effective in tackling dirt and dust. However, it is unable to remove small particles like flour from flooring that is hard and is unable to remove coffee grounds from carpeting.
Tineco Floor One S7 Pro can also handle wet spills. It is a bagged vacuum but has features such as an iLoop sensor that can detect dirt and stains; self-cleaning which will dry the brush roll more effective edge cleaning that gets into corners and along baseboards and a battery lasting 40 minutes - longer than any other model we've tested.
6. Ease of Cleaning
The most effective vacuum cleaners make it a breeze to deal with the mess. The Levoit LVAC-200 is a lightweight, compact vacuum cleaner that's powerful. In our tests, it sucked everything from kibble to ground coffee to dog hair. Its dual brushrolls capture pet hair and other particles without spitting them out or wrapping them around the cleaner head. This prevents clogging. self vacuum can be used to remove embedded pet hair even from difficult-to-access areas.
Another notable is the Shark Stratos Cordless, which effortlessly handled pet hair and other large debris in our tests. Its main floorhead has a soft front brushroll that collects fine dust and debris, while the second floorhead with stiff bristles penetrates deeper into carpeting to catch larger mess. The dust cup is large and easy to empty.
If your home is heavily carpeted, consider an upright or full-size canister vacuum with beater bars for more thorough cleaning sessions. Select a wet-dry vacuum which can take care of floors and messes caused by food or water. Examples include the Miele Cat and Dog or the Henry Hoover. These machines can handle an array of household debris, from tiny dust to large-scale messes. They may have more advanced features than handhelds on this list.