The best robot vacuums for pet hair

Best overallTapo RV50 Omni

The worst part of owning a robot in a house with a long-haired dog is the brush. Hair winds around it until someone turns the robot over and cuts it free. The RV50 Omni takes that job on. Its main brush is a hair-cutting design that slices through wrapped hair, though only while the robot is parked on its dock, and the side brush is an anti-tangle one.

The dock does a lot besides, and the robot costs between $500 and $1,000. It empties the robot’s 280 ml bin into a 3-litre bag, washes the mop pads, dries them with air warmed to 50°C, and refills the robot from a 5-litre clean water tank. That’s the biggest clean tank stated in our list. Suction is 12,000 Pa, and the pads spin at 180 rpm under as much as 8 N of pressure, so paw prints on the tiles get scrubbed. On low carpet the pads lift 12 mm, and before a high-pile carpet the robot drops them off at the dock.

It’s just over 10 cm tall, climbs a 2 cm sill and has a 5,200 mAh battery. The dock measures 35 x 47.5 x 48 cm.

The catch is what it can see. It spots obstacles with its mapping laser and nothing else, so a chew toy or a sock left on the floor is yours to pick up before a run.

That’s why the Mova is on this page. It has a front camera and more than twice the suction, and it’s the better choice where the floor is never clear or the dog lives on the carpet, for one band more. The Narwal is a band cheaper than the Tapo and has a front light sensor, but its flat pad only wipes and its suction is 8,000 Pa.

Best premiumMova Z60 Ultra Roller Complete

Some pets make more work than a mid-priced robot is built for: a double-coated dog that sleeps on the lounge-room rug, say, with its toys spread from one end of the hall to the other. The Z60 is the pick for that house, and it sits in our $1,000 to $1,800 band.

Hair is the first job, and the Z60 brings two anti-tangle brushes to it, backed by 28,000 Pa of suction. That’s the most of our three picks by a long way, and a rug is where you’d notice, because that’s where hair gets trodden down into the pile. The side brush extends outward, and a front camera helps the robot steer around what’s lying on the floor.

Then there’s the rug itself. The mop is a roller, and a wet roller is the last thing you want on the dog’s bed. On carpet the robot pulls the roller back, lifts it 14 mm and lowers a cover, which puts something between the wet mop and the rug the dog has claimed.

After a muddy walk the dock does the washing-up. It cleans the roller in water heated up to 80°C and dries it with hot air, then refills the robot and adds the detergent.

Where a heavy shedder will find it out is the bin. It holds 210 ml, the second-smallest stated in our list and less than either of the other two picks. In shedding season the robot will lean on its dock, which empties it into a 3.2-litre bag. That dock needs a space of 46.3 x 39 x 54.5 cm, and a full charge takes about 4.5 hours.

If your floors are mostly hard and usually clear, the Tapo deals with hair on the brush for a band less, and we’d save the money. The Narwal is two bands cheaper and suits a pet owner who wants the vacuuming done and isn’t fussed about mopping.

Best budgetNarwal Freo S

Pet hair is mostly a vacuuming problem, and a robot that costs under $500 can do the vacuuming well. The Freo S has a roller brush and a side brush that are both tangle-free designs, and a dock that empties its 250 ml bin into a 3.5-litre bag. Only one dust bag in our list is bigger, which is the number to look at with a heavy shedder in the house.

A front light sensor helps it detect furniture and low obstacles, and only one other robot in our under-$500 band has one. That’s a real help in a house where the cat’s toys migrate overnight.

Suction is 8,000 Pa, which suits hard floors and flat rugs better than a thick carpet full of undercoat. The mop is a flat pad pressed down with 8 N and fed from a 300 ml tank at three water levels, so think of it as a wipe for paw prints on the tiles. The robot stands 10 cm tall and can cross a 2 cm sill, and it keeps maps for more than one floor. Its dock measures 33 x 22.8 x 16.2 cm.

Where it falls short is cleaning power, because that suction is the lowest of our three picks and the mop is the simplest kind. The battery is 3,200 mAh and takes about five hours to charge.

If hair on the kitchen floor comes with dried drool and muddy prints, the Tapo scrubs with spinning pads and washes them itself for one band more. And if the dog sleeps on carpet, 8,000 Pa is a long way short of the Mova’s 28,000, so that’s where the extra money would go.