I am going to be putting in a light system for a friend of mine that is a quadriplegic.  I have an isy994 but have never worked with a hub.  I am wondering if anyone has worked with hub and if so how hard is it compared to the isy994?  I am really looking at doing the hub because it is a much cheaper option. 

It's not that much cheaper anymore, especially compared to the devices involved.  Check SH.com.

The ISY is much more reliable and more flexible.  The hub only allows basic schedules without any offsets.  The major advantage to the hub (aside from cost) is its very nice app interfaces and easy connection to a number of other devices.  Polyglot and the UDI Portal get rid of almost all of those advantages though.  For more basic users, it's also simpler to set up - I don't think that'll be an issue here though.

I want to get it setup and make it as easy as possible in case someone else has to ever work on it.  The isy994 is not always that easy.  We want to incorporate it with Alexa for him to make controlling lights something that he can control easily.  We are not going to do any complex settings and keep it simple yet make it controllable without his hands.

9 hours ago, ingeborgdot said:

I want to get it setup and make it as easy as possible in case someone else has to ever work on it.  The isy994 is not always that easy.  We want to incorporate it with Alexa for him to make controlling lights something that he can control easily.  We are not going to do any complex settings and keep it simple yet make it controllable without his hands.

I have a hub set up in a relatives 2nd home, and it works just fine for that simple setup; they just want some lighting and HVAC control when they're not there, which the hub provides.  It's basic, easy and it works, and all the setup/control can be done with the Insteon app on a mobile device.  The hub has plenty of limitations, but if you're only looking for simple scheduling, and on/off and level control of devices, and on/off control of scenes, the hub should work.  It works with Alexa and Google Assistant, though I can't speak to how well it works in that environment.

It should be maintainable without relying too much on specialized knowledge, which I believe is the sole benefit of choosing it over the ISY.

The only downside that I would consider is the reliance on the cloud for setup and operation.  So long that smartlabs stays in operation you are probably fine, but you need to ask yourself if that consideration is important.  Of course, you could consider other options later, if anything happens to smatlabs.

58 minutes ago, oberkc said:

The only downside that I would consider is the reliance on the cloud for setup and operation.  So long that smartlabs stays in operation you are probably fine, but you need to ask yourself if that consideration is important.  Of course, you could consider other options later, if anything happens to smatlabs.

...and once these cloud sales get flooded with clients and not many more new sale dollars, suddenly the "included" services become only $x per month for the first six months.

Also don't forget about the poor reliability of the hub. When it dies (usually about 2 years after installation) you'll have to start over with all your Insteon links and scenes. A huge problem!

Actually, the hub has the same capacitor problem that the PLM suffers from -- I replaced the caps on my daughter's hub, and it came right back to life.  I'm not sure I'd rate the ISY/PLM combination any better in that regard, since we still don't know that Not-So-Smarthome has *really* fixed the problem in the PLM yet.

14 hours ago, mwester said:

I'm not sure I'd rate the ISY/PLM combination any better in that regard,

ISY/plm better because your can simply replace plm, without reprogramming everything. When the hub dies you have to start over with your Insteon network. 

Insteon will replace a hub that has died, however, even past warranty.  That's not much, but it's more than they're doing with dead PLMs.

https://www.insteon.com/support-knowledgebase/2015/10/20/migrating-to-a-new-insteon-hub

 

It sounds like if your hub does go down, you won't lose any info or settings.  Is that what I am seeing from this link? 

41 minutes ago, ingeborgdot said:

It sounds like if your hub does go down, you won't lose any info or settings.  Is that what I am seeing from this link? 

I believe so.  It's like a cloud backup/restore of the Insteon hub.

That sounds great.  I may try this for the guy I'm putting the setup in for.  I have not worked with the hub but I always like to try new things.  If I don't like it, I'll just send it back and get an isy.