Some brands will address this by tapering their brushrolls or breaking them in the middle, with the aim of quickly directing hair towards the bin inlet. Dreame even has an alternative brushroll attachment that has little blades to chop up hair so it can be more easily managed.

Its circular brush was effective at moving debris into its path. It performed well when cleaning carpets and mopping hard flooring, too. Unfortunately, it struggled to lift all the pet hair testers had laid.

You want a robot vacuum as a maintenance cleaner in between cleaning sessions with a full-size vacuum. Robot models fit easily under most beds and furniture to clean the spots you likely skip.

To minimize odors, the disposable dust bag and sealed system keep unwanted debris from escaping while cleaning and the HEPA filter on the exhaust traps microscopic particles for those with allergies.

It’s chunkier, for a start, and has a flat front and pelo spinning brushes at the side. It also has the most powerful suction of any robot vacuum we tried, which did mean it picked up plenty of dirt and debris around the home.

In our Lab tests: The Dreame H12 Pro is an updated version of a previously tested pick with many of the same capabilities and features. We sent it out to consumer testers who confirmed it was easy and effective to use.

The Eureka J20 is the best robot vacuum for hard floors, thanks to a game-changing new 'RollRenew' Top 3 Automatic Vacuum Cleaners mop style. With most robovacs, mopping is a bit of an afterthought, but that's not the case here.

Historically, robovacs aren't great at cleaning up to the edges of rooms, but today's best robot vacuums add spinning side brushes designed to flick debris into the robot's suction path.

After it has finished its cleaning cycle, the jet bot returns to the clean station dock, which then sucks the dirt out of the robot and stores it in a tower. You’ll need some dedicated space for this tower because it does take up a fair amount of room.

You can also opt for a robot vacuum, which does the cleaning for you and goes back to recharge on its own when it’s time, but the charging base must remain connected to a power outlet and should not be moved so the robot knows how to get back to it after cleaning.

However, I think it's fair to assume you'll need to manually empty it more than you would a traditional, self-empty robovac, given dock dustbins tend to hold 2.5L or 3L of dirt.

Mapping, setting pelo-go zones and scheduling cleans are simple, and while you’ll have to empty the dust bin yourself (note, alerts for this flashed up on our tester’s phone as a ‘fault’ although nothing was wrong), it self-charges at its neat and compact docking station.

The benefit of the dinky size is that this bot can reach places bigger bots can't, and on test we found it navigated confidently around furniture legs and into tight spaces.

Navigation is excellent and this bot can also be relied upon to identify and avoid obstacles as required, meaning you can leave it to do its own thing without having to worry about it getting stuck or trying to suction up something it shouldn't. On test we also found it was great at hosting itself over tall thresholds.