Sebo Felix Pet review: amazing for pet hair, but with a few design drawbacks

RRP: £505 | Check price at Amazon and Sebo

How I tested

I tested the Sebo Felix Pet in my own home over the course of a month. My house has wooden floors, rugs and carpeted stairs, and I share it with two dogs, two cats, my wife and our two long-haired teenagers. Testing took place during summer, so there was no shortage of moulting, pet hair and long human hair to deal with.

I used the vacuum for regular whole-house cleaning rather than short, controlled tests. That meant tackling everything from embedded hair in carpets and rugs to dust and fluff on wooden floors, along skirting boards and in the corners where fur always seems to collect. I used the ET-1 Electric Powerhead on carpets and rugs, the Kombi head on wooden floors, and the Stair and Upholstery Turbo Brush on the carpeted stairs.

As well as looking at suction and pet hair pick-up, I paid close attention to what it was actually like to live with. I looked at how easy it was to switch between floor types, carry around the house, clean the stairs, store in a cupboard and change the bags. The biggest question was whether its excellent cleaning performance was enough to make up for the weight, wobble and awkward day-to-day handling.

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My verdict

The Sebo Felix Pet is one of the best vacuum cleaners I've used for tackling pet hair. Over a month of testing, it dealt with cat hair, dog hair and long human hair without any drop in performance, even during peak summer moulting. It pulled embedded hair out of carpets, rugs and carpeted stairs with very little effort.

Living with it every day was a different story. It's heavy, noticeably top-heavy and not especially intuitive to use. This isn't the sort of vacuum you grab for a quick whizz round the house. It's a large upright with a bag, a sizeable floor head and a few design quirks I wasn't expecting. I had to watch a YouTube video to work out how to change the bag the first time, swapping floor heads felt awkward because of the weight, and it didn't feel stable enough to leave unsupported on a stair while I used the hose attachment.

If your home is mostly carpet and you spend half your life vacuuming up pet hair, it's well worth considering. The suction is exceptional and it barely blinked at anything I threw at it. The bag and strong suction also makes it a smart choice for allergy sufferers.

I'd think twice if your home has lots of hard flooring, several flights of stairs or if lifting a heavy vacuum isn't appealing. At £505, it's competing with premium Dyson and Shark models. The cleaning performance is excellent, but I found the weight, wobble and everyday faff difficult to ignore.

Sebo Felix Pet: what's in the box?

The Sebo Felix Pet comes with a generous selection of tools. In the box you'll find:

• Sebo Felix Pet vacuum cleaner

• ET-1 Electric Powerhead

• Sebo Kombi floor head

• Stair and Upholstery Turbo Brush

• crevice nozzle

• upholstery nozzle

• attachment clamp

• Felix/Dart Ultra-Bag

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What's the Sebo Felix Pet like to set up?

Getting started was fairly straightforward. Everything clicked together without much effort and I didn't need instructions to assemble it. For a vacuum that looks quite traditional, the initial set-up was easier than I'd expected.

The awkwardness came later. Because the Felix Pet is so top-heavy, changing floor heads never felt particularly smooth. The orange foot pedal is easy enough to use and the heads unclip without much force, but balancing the machine while swapping them made the whole process feel clumsier than it needed to.

The first time I changed the bag I got stuck. My experience with bagged vacuum cleaners only goes as far as my trusty Henry Hoover, which has a fairly idiot-proof bag change. When it came to the Sebo, the mechanism for fitting the bag back in wasn't obvious, so I ended up watching a YouTube tutorial. Once I'd done it once, it was simple enough and changing the bag stayed clean and mess-free.

What's the Sebo Felix Pet like to use day-to-day?

Using the Felix Pet every day is a mixture of highs and lows. It's powerful, steers well and has an impressively agile swivel neck for an upright vacuum. It glides around furniture more easily than I expected, and the smaller Kombi head reaches corners where pet hair always gathers.

The rest of the machine is harder to love. It's large, heavy and noticeably top-heavy - so much so that it fell over twice during testing. The handle at the top of the wand doesn't have a loop, so it's designed more for pushing the vacuum during use than for carrying it around the house. There's another handle on the side of the bag housing, but this would have felt a lot more intuitive on the top, as the long wand means it's not practical to carry it horizontally.

The long cable is one of its strongest points. Sebo quotes an 11m cleaning range, and that matched my experience. I could vacuum several rooms before needing to find another socket, which is a real plus when using a corded vacuum.

Storage was better than I expected. Even with the large ET-1 floor head attached, it fitted comfortably into my cupboard under the stairs. The accessories were less successful. Although Sebo includes an attachment clamp, I found it much easier to keep the smaller tools together in a separate bag hanging on a hook beside the vacuum.

I'd describe the noise level as fairly typical. It wasn't especially loud or especially quiet. It simply sounded like a powerful upright vacuum doing its job.

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How well does the Sebo Felix Pet perform on carpets and rugs?

Carpet cleaning is where the Felix Pet shines. I tested it for a month in a house with two dogs, two cats and two long-haired teenagers, during summer when everyone seemed to be shedding. It never struggled with the amount of hair it had to deal with.

The ET-1 Electric Powerhead has plenty of bite. It lifted embedded pet hair from rugs and carpets with very little effort on my part, and I didn't run into any problems with tangles, blockages or a drop in suction during the whole test period. That's impressive given how much hair passed through it.

I was equally impressed with the Stair and Upholstery Turbo Brush. It pulled trodden-in pet hair out of the carpeted stairs far better than I'd expected and quickly became one of the accessories I reached for most.

The vacuum itself was less convincing on the stairs. It's top-heavy enough to wobble when balanced on a step while you're using the turbo brush, so I always felt the need to keep one hand on the main unit while cleaning the staircase. The brush did an excellent job, but the machine didn't always feel as stable as I'd have liked.

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How well does the Sebo Felix Pet perform on hard floors?

The Felix Pet cleaned wooden floors just as thoroughly as carpets, although using it wasn't quite as straightforward.

The first time I moved from carpet onto a hard floor with the ET-1 Electric Powerhead attached, a red warning light appeared. My immediate assumption was that I needed to swap to the Kombi head. the instructions explained that the power brush needs to be switched on and off for different floor types, but I didn't find that obvious from the red flashing light.

That was a recurring theme throughout my testing. The vacuum itself is excellent at picking dirt up, but some of the controls aren't particularly intuitive. A clearer layout would make everyday use much simpler, especially if you're moving between carpets and hard floors regularly.

Once I'd fitted the Kombi head, it cleaned wooden floors extremely well. It picked up pet hair, dust and everyday debris without any trouble, and the smaller head made it much easier to reach corners and edges where fluff tends to build up.

One design choice continued to annoy me, though. The vacuum won't stand upright with the Kombi head attached. On a large, heavy upright vacuum that's surprisingly inconvenient. If you're regularly swapping between rugs, carpet and hard flooring, having to change heads and then prop the vacuum against something every time soon becomes tiresome.

Is the Sebo Felix Pet good value for money?

At £505, the Felix Pet sits alongside premium models from Dyson and Shark. The suction power certainly justifies its reputation, but the overall experience doesn't feel quite as polished as I'd expect at this price.

There's also the ongoing cost of bags. At the time of writing, Sebo's Felix/Dart Ultra-Bags cost £15.90 for a pack of eight. That's hardly excessive, but it's another expense that bagless vacuums don't have. I also found the 3.5L bag looked relatively small compared with the one in my Henry.

Using bags does have one clear advantage. Emptying the vacuum stays clean. Once I'd worked out how to fit a new bag, changing it took seconds and I didn't end up with a cloud of dust afterwards. My family is lucky enough to not suffer from allergies, so for me the biggest benefit was simply keeping the mess contained.

I have very few complaints about the way the Felix Pet cleans. If your priority is removing pet hair from carpets, it's one of the strongest performers I've tested. I just wish using it every day involved less lifting, less swapping between floor heads and fewer small frustrations. At this price, those details matter.

About the author

Poppy O'Neill is a Content Editor at Mumsnet and a mother of two. She researches and reviews the products Mumsnetters swear by, with a particular focus on home essentials like steam irons, vacuum cleaners and heated throws.

From a highly recommended retractable washing line to the best quiet fans money can buy, and Mumsnet's favourite dehumidifier to the steam generator iron that'll cut your ironing time in half, she loves to deep-dive into research and find the very best products on the market.