Is a robot vacuum cleaner worth it with pets?

[Endogal]

I've been thinking of getting a robot vacuum clear for a while now to help reduce the day to day vacuuming but I'm worried about whether my pets will destroy it.

We have a giddy labrador who will likely take some interest in it but could be trained to leave it alone and two cats...

Those of you with pets please could you tell me:

a) do they actually work well at picking up animal hairs?

b) would it likely break after a bit of interest from a dog or cats?

A: yes - especially on hard floors, not quite so great on carpets. You may need to occasionally use a 'real' vacuum. You will possibly need to snip hair tangles off the brush once a fortnight or so. The best approach to keep on top of pet hair is to use it frequently.

B: I have one made by xiaomi. It has had a HARD life (3 dogs, 2 cats). The summary says it has now vacuumed 28000 square metres (!) and has spent 565 hours of its life hoovering. The suction fan broke last year and I was devastated. I was able to order a new from aliexpress for £4 and restore it to working order with a YouTube tutorial. It will need a new battery soon as it only works for about 45 minutes now before it has to recharge. Hoping aliexpress comes up trumps again.

I have a Eufy and it is the best thing in my life. Well, best thing after the dogs who make the mess it cleans up of course.
One of my dogs barked at it the first time it was going round but now they just ignore it and stay out of its way.

We have hard floors downstairs, two cats and a puppy.
Wouldn't be without the eufy.
It runs every morning for 90mins. Keeps the gritty feeling on bare feet away and definite,y keeps the dust down.
Can't use it upstairs on the carpets as I have long haired teens and out normal hoover barely copes!

I have a Eufy with a dog and a cat.

I do have all hardwood/slate floors-no carpet at all.

When I used to hoover and then mop the mop was full of pet hair (both black so very obvious) bur when Daisy the kitchenmaid robot hoover sweeps a room there is literally no hair at all in the mop!!!!

Absolutely brilliant-one of the best "saw it on mumsnet" purchase ever

Just to say you need to be sure that none of the pets have left and surprises on the floor before the vacuumed smears it aroud the house!

Amazing!! Thank you so much everyone your responses are so helpful! 😁 I'll definitely be investing in one! Xx

A) yes
B) the cocker spaniel just ignores it / the great dane doesn't like it and steers well clear

I have dark wooden floors and white dogs I love my robot vacuum and the dogs just ignore it

I don't have one but a colleague does and one afternoon her dog had an upset tummy , the roomba rolled over to clean it a dragged shit everywhere.

It works well on ragdoll hairs in my house which is all carpeted.

One cat ignores it and the other thinks it's a toy. She chases it when it drives away from her and then runs away when it approaches her. She didn't like it when it ran over her tail though!

Which model of eufy do you recommend is the hybrid with a mop any good

I’m really really glad that I don’t have a tally of how many hours of my life I’ve spent vacuuming 😫

A) yes
B) no

We have one, we have hardwood floors and its great at cleaning them.

Our dogs didn’t like it at first, lots of barking, but they’ve got used to it. They still watch it suspiciously though.

Our cat sometimes sits on it when it’s doing its thing, swishing her tail as she’s transported around the room. 🙄

We have one and it’s amazing! Very good at getting up hairs from hard floors and our pets run and hide when it’s on. We have a timer set for 7pm every night. It’s not great at corners and some furniture it can’t get under so we run the actual hoover round once a week for those bits.

I have a puffy Persian cat and I love my Eufy.

When he was a kitten, he did like to swat at the Eufy and we had one incident where he got his claw caught in the brush. So I had a screaming kitten attached to a robot vacuum, trying to separate the two but no actual harm was done and ever since, he has ignored it.

I have a eufy ( no pets). Brilliant on hard floors, ok on carpets, agree that you need to vacuum as well to get a really good result perhaps every 4th time on carpet.

The little brushes almost polish hard floors as it vacuums. We love ours.

Mines ok at collecting cat hair and the cat ignores it , but I wouldn’t say it in any way replaces a normal hoover . It does a good enough job for a once over , but then can get itself stuck in odd places , it’s favourite being the largest cat tower , where it climbs over the base and for some reason thinks it can get under the bottom box but ends up wedged in the gap under the cat staircase on it. I couldn’t trust the thing to do it’s job without supervision 🤦🏻‍♀️

I've come on to ask whether anyone heard Gary Davies talking about this on Radio 2 yesterday?

Yes mine is full everyday with dog hair