I need a new technology-oriented hobby

[vk3yedotcom]

Amateur radio / RF. It's a different and interesting world.

+1

Amateur radio/RF has a huge variety of subinterests so it's worth poking around to see if one of those takes your fancy. 

Eg it's not just talking around the world.  Many adherents don't even talk at all, preferring digital or Morse modes. Others are more builders than operators and rarely get on air.

Those with allied interests (eg space or astronomy) may like satellite communication or radio astronomy. 

Neither is it all indoors - there are certain aspects of radio (eg VHF or HF communication) which work a lot better from a peak or beach.

While an exam is required for entry to most on-air aspects, there are parts (including some transmitter experiments) that don't require it.

Eg experimenting with 'short range devices' or UHF modules.

My videos (vk3ye on YouTube) include just a few aspects. 

As for a hobby allied to work, opinion is divided on whether this is a good thing - an intense job could put you off the hobby if they're too similar. 

Maybe it's this reason why some are high-tech in their day job but their hobby is a low-tech or historical aspect (eg restoring and using heritage equipment). 

[setq]

Good points there. My day job is high tech. Hobby is distinctly low tech. Keeps a good mental balance. Btw vk3ye, subscriber here - thanks for your work. Regular inspiration found in your videos.

[R005T3r]

Smartphones? I thought about fpga's. But your idea sounds cool.

Repairing smartphones is annoying as hell, especially because it's only order a replacement, wait... Change the replacement. You are good to go.

Not to mention, that screen repairs are boring as hell. You will never touch the soldering iron again.

[rstofer]

Smartphones? I thought about fpga's. But your idea sounds cool.

FPGAs are very cool!  You can build just about any digital system you want.  Maybe you still have warm fuzzy feelings for a computer you used in college.  Build one!  It helps if you can find the software first but even simple machines can be interesting.  Given a reasonably large memory size (64kB), it would be pretty easy to recreate something like CP/M for an OS, regardless of the underlying architecture.  Read the User Manual and implement the functions.  The method of passing arguments might be different.  Don't want to write the OS in ASM?  Look into the feasibility of porting LCC.  In fact, design the architecture from the beginning to support the needs of LCC.