I’ve been stuck in the work, recharge, repeat cycle for about a decade now. I’m looking to get back into hobbies and activities to enjoy my free time and possibly meet other folks.

I’ve heard you should have 3 types of hobbies: something to keep you fit, something to keep you creative, and something that can make some money. I’ve considered gym/triathlon (fitness) and woodworking (creative/income).

What are your hobbies? Anything you recommend I try out?

  • JustEnoughDucks
    12•2 months ago

    Electronics projects mostly.

    Mostly smart home PCBs and interconnect boards and 3D modelled housings. Examples:

    • esp32-C3 dumb doorbell (just a doorbell that sends an MQTT message and sleeps the rest of the time). It works fatastic except that my Proximus ISP modem/router completely fucked up and so the network is no longer usable and I had to set it in bridge mode to a router it can’t reach. I want to release it, but haven’t had the time to water - resistance test it or make assembly instructions
    • esp32-S3 voice assistant satellite attached to an IR blaster, I2S mic, and PCM5102 to control and send audio to my old Yamaha RX-496RDS to control it via IR and can play audio (local or Spotify) via music assistant. Pretty much an Alexa echo attached to my speaker system. PCB link which I am planning on releasing.
    • My unfinished Flight Stick with custom electronics, fully custom 3D printable housing, etc… It is almost done, but needs like 2 more small iterations, but we moved and started doing a full-strip renovation, so my 3D printer is no longer set up because it is too dusty inside, and I don’t want to spend another $100 doing a PCB test iteration to use a better ADC with less components. Eventually as firmware practice, I want to rewrite the firmware in Rust or something. I also just looked at the Repo and the quick logo I drew up has been modified somehow without any commit. I know for a fact it was correct before. Very weird.

    I also have tons of new project ideas that I don’t have time for.

    My other hobbies

    • weightlifting, again completely dropped off due to every free moment renovating

    • Running a home server with replacement services for everything I need

    • Running (my motivation has been 0 recently…)

    • cooking. I try to do a few new recipes per month

    • gardening. With the renovation, I just grew a few courgettes, tomatoes, and squash this year

    • video games (more of a de-stresser nowadays than a hobby, most recently casual rocket league with friends is fun, hadn’t played since 2018 or so)