The complete guide
Choosing and setting up a garden badminton net
Width matters more than people expect
A badminton court is 6.1m wide for doubles. No garden net is that wide, and it does not need to be, but the narrower the net the more shots go round it rather than over it.
At 4.27m this one is at the wide end of what portable nets offer. In practice that is the difference between a game and a series of arguments about whether that one counted.
Height is the setting nobody uses, and should
The poles carry three marks: 107cm, 120cm and 155cm.
155cm is regulation. If adults are playing a real game, that is the height, and playing lower makes the game feel wrong to anyone who plays properly.
120cm is the family setting. Low enough that a child can lift a shuttle over it consistently, high enough that adults are not just tapping it back and forth.
107cm is for small children, and for other sports. It is also the setting for football tennis, and roughly where you want it for a relaxed volleyball game.
Changing it takes seconds, which means one net covers a garden full of people of different ages instead of suiting exactly one of them.
Setting it up somewhere that is not a lawn
The reason this net has no stakes is so that it can go anywhere flat.
Driveways and patios. Works straight away. Nothing to push into the ground.
Beach and campsite. Also fine. On a windy beach, weighting the feet with a bag or a couple of stones stops the whole thing shuffling sideways during a long rally.
Indoors. A hall or a garage with the height for it. Check what is behind the net before anyone serves properly.
The two minute claim is real once you have done it once. The first time, expect five, mostly spent working out which pole section goes where.
Looking after it
Nylon and painted steel are both forgiving, and the two things that shorten their life are both about storage.
Dry it before it goes in the case. A wet net folded away smells within a week and stays smelling.
Keep grit out of the bungee cord. Sand in the pole sections is what stops them sliding together neatly, and a quick shake on the beach saves that.
What it is not
It is a portable recreation net. It reaches regulation height, but it is not a club fixture and it is not designed to stand outdoors all year.
If what you want is a set with rackets and shuttles included, the badminton set is the product for that. This is the net on its own, which is what most people want when they already own rackets.