A:Answer I've purchased 4 of these sound machines; 2 for a niece and nephew and one each for my son and me. Our apartment is on the bottom floor and, at night especially, I could hear every time the people upstairs went to the bathroom or their squeeky bed and it would disturb my sleep. This tunes all that out. My niece uses it to tune out the busy street noise from her apartment in LA so getting to your question, I would think it would work for patio noise too. Don't know if it's made for outdoors so I would bring in each night. It has an assortment of fan sounds. I didn't think I'd like it as i was gravitating to the rain, ocean sounds but I use this every night. Very pleased.