Living with a shedding dog or cat means pet hair has an impressive ability to appear everywhere, including five minutes after you’ve vacuumed.
A robot vacuum can make a real difference by cleaning frequently enough to stop loose fur building up in the first place. But pet hair is also one of the areas where robot vacuum performance varies enormously.
The best models need to do more than have powerful suction. They need to actually lift hair from carpet and rugs, collect loose fur from hard floors, resist hair tangles and empty themselves reliably without creating another cleaning job for you.
After comparing current Australian models, manufacturer specifications and independent testing, these are the robot vacuums we’d consider for a home with pets.
The quick answer
| Our pick | Best for | Why we like it | Where to buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roborock Saros 20 | Best overall for pet hair | Excellent tested pet-hair removal, strong anti-tangle performance and excellent obstacle avoidance | Check current price → |
| eufy Omni S2 | Best premium all-rounder | Excellent embedded-hair pickup, strong anti-tangle performance and excellent mopping | Check price at eufy → |
| eufy Omni C28 | Best value | Strong carpet cleaning and pet-hair performance without flagship pricing | Check price at eufy → |
Roborock Saros 20
Best overall for pet hair
If pet hair is the problem you’re specifically trying to solve, the Roborock Saros 20 is our first pick.
Independent testing found it particularly effective at removing hair embedded in carpet, which is where many robot vacuums struggle.
Vacuum Wars recorded 88% embedded pet-hair pickup in its carpet test, alongside excellent resistance to hair wrapping around the brush. Other independent testing has also identified pet-hair removal as one of the Saros 20’s strengths.
That’s an important combination.
A robot that picks up fur but constantly needs hair cut from its roller isn’t particularly autonomous. Likewise, an anti-tangle brush isn’t much use if it leaves embedded fur behind.
The Saros 20 performs strongly on both fronts.
It also has sophisticated obstacle recognition, which matters in a pet household where toys, bowls and other objects are likely to appear on the floor.
What we like
- Excellent independently tested pet-hair removal
- Strong anti-tangle brush system
- Very good obstacle recognition
- Strong carpet cleaning for a robot vacuum
- Self-emptying dock
- Designed to handle thresholds and challenging floor transitions
- Current Australian model
What to know
It’s expensive.
If most of your pet’s hair sits loosely on timber or tile rather than becoming embedded in carpet, you may not need to spend this much to keep it under control.
If muddy paw prints and hard-floor mopping matter just as much as fur removal, we’d also look closely at the eufy Omni S2.
Best for: Homes with shedding pets, particularly where fur becomes embedded in rugs or carpet.
eufy Omni S2
Best premium all-rounder for pet owners
The eufy Omni S2 is the robot we’d consider if you want excellent pet-hair handling and particularly capable mopping in the same machine.
In Vacuum Wars’ testing, the S2 removed 88.5% of embedded pet hair from carpet and recorded zero hair wrap in its long-hair test.
That’s excellent performance for a robot vacuum.
It also uses eufy’s HydroJet roller mop, which continuously cleans the roller as the robot moves. That makes the S2 particularly interesting for homes dealing with both shedding animals and the mess they track across hard floors.
Its obstacle avoidance is another useful feature in a pet household, where toys, bowls and other small objects can complicate automated cleaning.
What we like
- Excellent embedded pet-hair pickup in independent testing
- Excellent resistance to hair tangling
- Strong carpet cleaning
- Highly capable roller-mop system
- Automated self-emptying and mop-cleaning station
- Designed to adapt between hard flooring and carpet
- Current Australian model
What to know
This is a premium robot vacuum with a premium price.
If your main goal is simply collecting loose fur from hard floors every day, there are less expensive ways to do it.
The S2 makes more sense when you want a high-end all-round cleaning system, particularly if your pets create both fur and hard-floor mess.
Best for: Pet owners who want excellent fur removal, strong mopping and maximum automation in one machine.
eufy Omni C28
Best value for pet owners
The eufy Omni C28 is one of the more interesting current robot vacuums for pet owners who don’t want to move into flagship pricing.
It combines capable carpet and pet-hair cleaning with an anti-tangle design, roller mopping and an automated cleaning dock.
For a pet household, that combination makes sense.
Frequent automated vacuuming helps stop loose fur accumulating around the house, while the roller mop can deal with everyday marks, paw prints and other mess on hard floors.
You still get much of the hands-off cleaning experience people buy premium robot vacuums for, but at a lower price than the flagship S2 or Saros 20.
What we like
- Good pet-hair performance
- Strong carpet cleaning
- Anti-tangle design
- Roller-mop system
- Automated cleaning dock
- Lower price than flagship models
- Current-generation eufy model sold in Australia
What to know
The C28 isn’t simply a cheaper S2.
The S2 is the more sophisticated machine, particularly if you have substantial rugs, complicated mixed flooring or want eufy’s more advanced floor-management features.
But if your priority is getting a capable current-generation robot that can keep everyday pet hair under control without paying flagship prices, the C28 makes a compelling case.
Best for: Pet owners looking for a capable automated robot vacuum without paying flagship prices.
What actually matters in a robot vacuum for pet hair?
Pet-hair pickup matters more than suction figures
Robot vacuum manufacturers increasingly advertise enormous suction numbers.
They’re useful specifications, but they don’t tell you how effectively a machine will remove fur from your floors.
Brush design, carpet agitation, airflow and the way the robot moves across the floor all influence real-world performance.
That’s why we put more weight on independent pet-hair testing than headline suction figures.
Carpet is the real challenge
Loose fur sitting on timber, tile or other hard flooring is relatively easy for a good robot vacuum to collect.
Hair embedded into carpet and rugs is much harder.
CHOICE’s Australian laboratory testing reflects this broader problem. Pet-hair performance varies dramatically between robot vacuums, so it’s worth looking at tested hair removal rather than assuming every premium robot will perform equally well.
If you have a heavily shedding pet and substantial carpet, pay particular attention to tested carpet pet-hair performance.
Anti-tangle doesn’t necessarily mean good pet-hair pickup
These are two different things.
Pet-hair pickup tells you how effectively the robot removes fur from your floor.
Anti-tangle performance tells you how much of that hair becomes wrapped around the robot’s brushes.
Ideally, you want both.
A robot with excellent anti-tangle technology can still leave embedded fur behind, while a robot that collects lots of hair may require frequent manual brush cleaning.
For a genuinely low-maintenance pet vacuum, both matter.
A self-emptying dock is particularly useful with pets
Pet hair is bulky.
A shedding animal can fill a small onboard robot-vacuum bin surprisingly quickly, particularly if the robot hasn’t run for a few days.
A self-emptying dock lets the robot transfer that debris into a much larger bag or container automatically.
For us, this moves from a nice-to-have feature to a genuinely useful one in a heavily shedding household.
Obstacle avoidance matters too
Pets tend to leave things on floors.
Toys, food bowls and other small objects can all interfere with an automated cleaning run.
Good obstacle recognition reduces the amount of preparation required before sending the robot out to clean.
We’d still pick up anything particularly important or hazardous before running a robot vacuum rather than relying completely on its object detection.
Can a robot vacuum actually keep up with a shedding pet?
Yes, with realistic expectations.
This is one of the situations where robot vacuums make the most sense because their biggest advantage isn’t necessarily cleaning power. It’s frequency.
You might not manually vacuum your entire home every day.
A robot can.
Running it daily means loose fur can be collected before it accumulates under furniture or becomes worked further into rugs and carpet.
CHOICE’s testing demonstrates how much model selection matters. Its robot-vacuum testing has found significant variation in pet-hair performance between models.
So buying any robot vacuum and expecting it to solve your pet-hair problem isn’t enough.
You need one that’s actually good at collecting hair.
Will it replace your normal vacuum?
Probably not if you have substantial carpet or rugs.
Even very good robot vacuums don’t provide the same deep cleaning as a capable stick, barrel or upright vacuum.
We’d think of the robot as your daily maintenance cleaner.
Let it collect fur, dust and everyday debris frequently, then use your regular vacuum periodically for deeper carpet and rug cleaning, upholstery, stairs, corners and other areas the robot can’t properly reach.
For a pet household, that can still dramatically reduce how often you’re confronted by visible fur.
Which one would we buy?
For a home where pet hair itself is the main cleaning problem, we’d start with the Roborock Saros 20.
Its combination of independently tested embedded-hair pickup, anti-tangle performance and obstacle recognition makes it the strongest pet-specific recommendation of the models we considered.
If we wanted a more complete premium cleaning system, particularly for a home with hard floors that also need frequent mopping, we’d choose the eufy Omni S2.
And if value mattered more, we’d look closely at the eufy Omni C28. It offers a strong combination of pet-hair cleaning and automation without moving into flagship pricing.
If your bigger challenge is managing a combination of timber floors and rugs rather than pet hair specifically, see our guide to the Best Robot Vacuums for Timber Floors and Rugs in Australia (2026).
How we chose
Homekindly’s recommendations in this guide are research-based rather than the result of our own hands-on testing.
We compared current Australian models using manufacturer specifications alongside independent laboratory and hands-on testing.
For this guide, we placed particular weight on measured pet-hair pickup, carpet performance, resistance to hair tangling, hard-floor cleaning, obstacle avoidance, self-emptying capability, Australian availability and overall value.
We did not rank products based on affiliate commission.
Prices and availability change, so we recommend checking current Australian pricing before purchasing.
Some links in this article are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, Homekindly may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Affiliate relationships do not determine which products we recommend.
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