The Best Home Vacuum Cleaner

The ideal home vacuum cleaner is a tool that is simple to operate and use. The ideal model will be light, quiet and efficient.

This suction model is a great value at a reasonable price, with an effective anti-hair wrap floorhead and an odor-neutralizing puck. It also comes with a huge bin and is extremely easy to empty.

1. Power

A powerful vacuum cleaner can effectively manage household debris and help to keep mess under control. If you're dealing with a heap of pet hair or a clogged kitchen drain, it should be able to clear the mess with a minimum of effort. It should also collect fine dust and inhibit the growth of bacteria, ensuring clean, healthy air quality. The right model depends on your budget as well as your flooring type and size of your household. The most popular models are uprights, portable handhelds, light sticks, and handy robots.

The Black+Decker Flex Vac is a hand-held vacuum that is lightweight and has an impressively high-quality performance. It can remove pet hair and other larger debris easily and is ideal for households with pets that are multiple or for large homes. It also has an easy-to empty trash receptacle that will help avoid the mess of cleaning up. The vacuum can be used as a mop in order to allow users to complete two jobs at the same time.

Take a look at a large upright or canister corded model for households with a lot of furniture. These models typically have larger motors as well as an electric floorhead that can tackle the toughest dirt and carpeting. They're also available with different power modes to provide different suction and a longer battery life. It's an excellent idea to choose a vacuum with a HEPA filter if someone in your home suffers from allergies.

2. Flexibility

The best vacuum cleaners can handle a variety of tasks around the house, from dusting to deep-cleaning carpets. They are typically lightweight and easy to move. They should also have various attachments that meet your needs.

If you have pets, think about a vacuum designed to deal with pet hair. They typically have a dedicated power brush that draws pet hair away from the main floorhead and directs it into the dust container to ensure it doesn't get stuck or become stuck around the vacuum's brush roll.

The top-rated vacuums have intelligent features that can integrate with your home's systems, or adapt to different floor types and levels of dirt. This is especially important for those with allergies, as these features keep dust particles from getting recirculated throughout the air.

Vacuums can be a bit pricey, but the best ones are available for sale at least once a year during major events such as Black Friday and Amazon's Prime Day. There are also great deals in the spring when sales are planned by retailers to coincide with customers' annual spring cleaning.

The life expectancy of a vacuum may vary depending on the model and how you use it. Most of our top-rated vacuums last an average of eight years. If you want to make sure yours will outlast the other models, you should look for one with a longer warranty.

3. Simple to Use

A vacuum cleaner must be easy to move and use, even for an extended cleaning session. A lightweight, compact vacuum cleaner that has easy-to-use controls attachments, as well as large, non-emptying bins are all important. A variety of features make it easier of use, including motorized power nozzles that can tackle carpets and rugs with greater efficiency as well as a tall and wide floor head that reaches under furniture, a rotating nozzle for better corner cleaning, a self-cleaning roller system and LED lighting that illuminates the way ahead.

For instance our top pick in this category is the Shark Stratos cordless vacuum, was a breeze to move and required the least amount of battery power during our tests. It also comes with an automatic suction adjustment and a sleek LCD screen with a battery indicator 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 easily. It also did a great job with flooring with low pile and was able to remove sand, rice and other particles in only a few passes. It also has a front brushroll that is soft to catch small particles and stop pet fur from spitting out and a rear brushroll which is stiff and can dig into carpeting.

Similar to the budget-friendly Kenmore Elite sucks up wet spills and messes from hard floors with the power of its dual brushroll design, yet it's light enough to move up and down stairs as well as across a house without breaking sweat. It's also easier to maintain than many upright models with a HEPA filter that's easily removable, as well as dust bags that can be changed once is full.

4. Versatility

The Levoit is a highly versatile model, capable of handling all cleaning tasks. It might not come with all the features found in more expensive models, but its key features make it a good choice for everyday use. These include an 8-foot hose to reach over floors and a large dust container that's easy to empty.

Its brush roll is designed to collect 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 lots of hair. Its performance in tests showed that it could handle a variety debris, including carpets with low piles and hard floors. It also took out sand, rice, and Cheerios.

The Miele Flex Vac is a multi-purpose cordless vacuum that has impressive power. It was especially effective at sucking up pet hair, and also picked larger particles, like cereal. However, it was unable to deal with more caked on debris such as car dust. It also comes with a broad variety of attachments, such as a motorized power nozzle that makes short work of pet hair and dirt that accumulates on upholstery.

5. Battery Life

A quality vacuum cleaner for home use should run for at least an hour without needing to recharged. robot cleaner robotvacuummops is essential for cordless models, as it lets you clean without stopping.

Shark Stratos cordless vacuum is our top pick. It comes with a long battery life and a powerful debris picker. The three cleaning modes - Eco, Auto and boost, help you to manage the power so that you can clean for longer without draining your battery too quickly. The vacuum features an elegant LCD display that displays the presence of a blockage and how much time you have left and your battery status.

This model is perfect for homes with pets because the brushroll with no-tangle is effective in removing pet hair. It also is very effective in tackling dirt and dust. However, it struggles to remove fine particles like flour from hard flooring and is unable to remove coffee grounds from carpeting.

Tineco Floor One S7 Pro can also handle spills that are wet. It's an upright vacuum that comes with features such as an iLoop smart sensor that detects dirt and stains; self-cleaning which will dry the brush roll cleaner edges that get into corners and along baseboards and a battery that can last for 40 minutes, which is more than any other model we've tested.

6. Cleaning is easy

The most effective vacuums make cleaning up mess effortless. The Levoit LVAC-200 is a light compact vacuum cleaner that's also powerful. It was able to take in everything from kibble to ground coffee and hair from dogs in our standard tests. Its dual brushroll design collects pet hair and other large debris, without spitting it out or wrapping it around the cleaner's head which helps keep it clear of clogging. And its motorized tool sucks embedded pet hair from upholstery, even in hard-to-reach places.


Another highlight is the Shark Stratos Cordless, which easily dealt with pet hair as well as other debris in our standard tests. The main floorhead is a soft front brushroll, which captures fine dust and debris, while the second floorhead with stiff bristles penetrates deeper into carpeting to catch larger mess. The dust cup can hold plenty of space and is easy to empty.

If you have a lot of carpet in your home, you might think about an upright that is full-size or a canister vacuum with beater for deeper cleaning. You can also choose a versatile wet-dry vacuum that can tackle the floors as well as messes caused by food or water like the Miele C3 Cat & Dog or the Henry Hoover. These machines can handle an array of household waste, from small dust to large-scale messes. They may come with more advanced features than the handhelds listed on this list.