Pet owners trying to remove fur from carpet, upholstery and the weird dead zones behind furniture got a new set of buying signals from WIRED, whose reviewers tested more than a dozen vacuums across cordless sticks, corded models, handhelds, robot vacuums and vacuum-mop hybrids.
The top cordless pick was Dyson’s Gen5Detect, listed at $800 on Amazon in WIRED’s guide. Reviewer Nena Farrell favored it for pet hair because its illuminated hard-floor head makes otherwise hard-to-see dust and fur visible. That sounds like a gimmick until you have a shedding animal and a floor that looks clean only because the lighting is lying to you.
WIRED said the Dyson model combines stick-vac convenience with enough cleaning power to stand in for a corded machine. The Gen5Detect converts into a handheld and ships with tools including a hair screw tool, a combination crevice tool, a dusting tool, Dyson’s Fluffy Optic cleaner head and a Digital Motorbar cleaner head for carpet.
The mechanism is straightforward. The carpet head uses 56 detangling vanes, which WIRED said kept hair from wrapping around the brush bar during testing. The hard-floor head uses a soft roller and a green angled light to reveal fine debris. Dyson also claims the vacuum has whole-machine HEPA filtration and traps 99.99 percent of particles down to 0.1 microns. WIRED listed 70 minutes of run time, 262 air watts of power, a 0.2-gallon bin and a two-year parts-and-labor warranty. The tradeoff: WIRED found it louder than Dyson’s V15 Detect.
Budget cordless and handheld picks
For a cheaper cordless option, WIRED picked Bissell’s PowerClean FurFinder, shown at $200 after a 23 percent discount from a $260 price. The vacuum has three suction settings, a front headlight and a mini vacuum head called the FurFinder Tool. Farrell found that smaller head useful on upholstery and cat-tree platforms, where a full-size floor head is usually just an awkward plastic shovel.
WIRED said the Bissell worked on hardwood, carpet, rugs and tile, and handled fur and dust well. Its listed specs include a 0.5-liter dust cup, 200 watts of power, up to 40 minutes of run time, a HEPA filter with Bissell’s sealed allergen system and a five-year limited warranty. WIRED noted that the battery life is usually closer to 20 minutes, and that the dustbin is smaller than those on pricier stick vacuums.
For handheld cleaning, WIRED chose Shark’s UltraCyclone Pro, priced at $90 on Amazon. The 3-pound vacuum uses two cyclonic airstreams and a motorized self-cleaning brush meant to pull hair into the bin rather than wind it around the roller. WIRED listed a 0.45-quart capacity, pet brush, scrubbing brush, crevice tool, 80 watts of power, a fabric filter and about 15 minutes of run time. Farrell liked it for household messes beyond pet hair, including spilled Cheerios and renovation debris, but marked the short battery life as the obvious weakness.
WIRED’s cheap handheld pick was Bissell’s Pet Hair Eraser, also listed at $90. The 3-pound vacuum includes a motorized brush, crevice tool and upholstery tool, with a 0.7-liter bin, a 14.4-volt lithium-ion battery, up to 17 minutes of run time and a three-stage filter that includes an H13 HEPA filter. WIRED said the attachments were effective, though longer-term testing found hair tangled in the motorized brush more easily than ideal.
WIRED disclosed that its editors independently choose featured products, while the publication may earn compensation from retailers or purchases made through its links.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
