I know, I know but hear me out. I want to get music out on the patio, this unit would make things very easy from a wiring point of view plus be much easier for the wife. At $500 I think it's waaaaay overpriced but reviews are very positive.

Anyone have one? Like it? What weaknesses does it have?

I don't have Sonos but I do have 3 HEOS gen2 speakers.  A Heos 1, 3 and 5.  My Marantz also acts as another HEOS speaker.

I put one in my office, one in the bedroom and one in the kitchen.  I can group them together to all play the same source or separately so they can all be different.  Sources can be Spotify, Pandora, Tunein, Siriusxm, Tidal, your own DLNA server, etc.  They only require power and a wifi connection.  The HEOS 1 has an optional battery pack for it.

The best part is the sound.  They sound fantastic--especially their bass response.  

Alexa integration is supposed to be released soon.

IMO, the HEOS 3 is the sweet spot.  The 3 and 5 are very close in sound.  Im not sure the extra scratch for the 5 is worth it (unless you have a big room in which case it might be worth it to just get 2 HEOS 3s and group them.)  I don't have a 7 so I can't comment on it.

Pros:  Gen 2 HEOS speakers sound much better than their Sonos counterparts.

Cons:  The Sonos app is better, imo.  I wish D&M would fire their entire app development team and start over.  Im hoping with Sound United buying D&M this is exactly what happens.

I'm going to go another route now, I'm going to pick up a dedicated Yamaha receiver with Musicast built in, wire up outdoor speakers where I'm looking to put audio. Having the option of Musicast (same is HEOS and Sonos) with compatible speakers is a huge plus plus Yamaha's app control/Musicast is better than D&M. Anyone want to confirm/deny?

I just helped a friend set up a whole house audio system using "cast" technology.  He's not very technical but he described wanting the functionality of Sonos but with ceiling speakers.  I said that Sonos had that for about $500 per room.  That blew up his budget so we went with the Audiocast M5 as the source unit for each room.  He uses a Lepai amp per room to power the speakers.  That gets him smart phone control, the ability to stream virtually anything (SiriusXM, Spotify, iTunes, DLNA, etc) and the feature of joining cast devices to a single source.  Not bad for under $70 per room.

Ok update. I decided to go with a network-enabled, MusicCast Yamaha receiver. Reason is MusicCast is a bonus not hard requirement and it was half priced of the Sonon unit. Remote app control isn't as slick but it's 85%, you can do what you want easily. Apple Airplay works very, very well.

I decided to wire up 4 speakers, two rocks and two weatherproof bookshelf speakers both from Niles. So far everything sounds great but the speakers will open up over time and the bass (without a dedicated sub) is fine for patio use.