Vacuums & Cleaning

It keeps a mostly tidy home tidy on a schedule. An upright or a cordless stick is for actual cleaning. Expecting a robot to replace deep cleaning is the most common disappointment in this category, and buying a premium upright when you would rather not push anything around is the second.

Deep carpet and pet hair reward suction and a good brush roll. Hard floors and open plans reward robots. Once you know which you need, look past the headline specifications to the running costs. Filters, bags, brush rolls and replacement batteries add up, and cordless runtime figures are quoted on the lowest power setting, not the one that actually lifts anything.

Battery decline and parts availability decide whether a vacuum is repairable or landfill, so two- and three-year owner reports carry the most weight in these guides. The rest comes from manufacturer specifications and published expert testing, not from a vacuum of our own.