Ham radio! It's relaxing. My favorite activity is to take my portable gear to parks and operate Parks on the Air.

I've been getting into primitive technology lately. It all started when I looked at my back yard and thought hey, if we call it red clay, then I should be able to make it into pottery. I take dirt from my yard, levigate it, add grog and wedge, hand-build pots, and fire them in my fire pit. Been making sharpening stones from river rocks. Crafting replicas of Roman machines. That sort of thing.

This could be niche, but I'm a fountain pen nerd. I love stationary, different types of papers inks and nibs and how they all influence the writing experience.

Used to be sword fighting, but difficult after I got into an accident and can barely use my hand anymore...

I've been on a hiatus due to some medical stuff making it hard for me to concentrate, but I'm a lock nerd. I collect cool locks ("cool" being very subjective here 😅) and pick / manipulate them.

edit: here's a tiny part of my collection. I'd upload more but I'm having a hard time with the mobile site and image uploads

growing chillies in beer cans

Left is a ghost pepper, right is a 7 Pot Congo

Some more niche than others but basically...making stuff. Cross stitch, yarn crafts, sewing, needle felting, dicemaking, 3d printing, very occasional cosplay, I'm about to try my first macrame kit and a friend is planning for us to learn punch needle together.

There's something just so satisfying about making real stuff you can use, or wear, or wash yourself with or whatever (I also briefly got into soapmaking).

If you want to chat about basically any craft (or just lurk and look at pretty projects, that's ok too), I've been keeping a megalist of relevant communities and magazines here https://lemm.ee/post/224890. And if anyone reading this runs a related one that should be on the list please DM me to be added!

I build custom mechanical keyboards. Got into it because of the Pandemic and now I have built 6 of them. /r/mk and /r/emk used to be some of my most visited subs on the other site. I'm now known as the goto for keyboard questions in my circles of friends.

I started getting into fidgeting more lately and took a liking to magnetic sliders and now have a few that I pretty much always have with me.

And that extended into me learning about begleri beads somehow so now I am attempting to learn that. I can do slips and 2 finger wraps and occasiaonal one finger or thumb wraps but not much else yet. I accidentally learned a stall because I messed up. I need to really learn transfers since that is one of the main things you do a lot of.

I think I am also amongst the hyperfixator group in this thread. I was previously into speedsolving Rubik's cubes and roasting coffee so I feel a lot of these answers lol.

stealth camping. basically camping where your not supposed to / normally wouldn't want to, and have your presence remain unknown. it's great fun and breathed new life into "the outdoors" for me

I'm pretty into conlanging, which is basically making up languages. There are tons of different approaches and ways people can go about it, but like probably most (or at least a plurality of) other conlangers, I generally go for something as naturalistic as possible. I'm also into linguistics so it serves as kind of an interesting way to explore different features and grasp them better, as well as just an excuse to do more research to find out more about something.

I like traditional slavic folk music and leatherworking (which is misleading what I do is more like crafting rather basic things out of leather, I don't tan or work the leather myself)

Roasting and brewing the best coffee I possibly can.

Installing open source operating systems or firmware on every device I can.

I’m really into electronics and plants. Together. I grew up on a farm with greenhouses so my interest in control systems, electricity and plants developed all together. I’ve built growth chambers, plant lights, automated waterers and yet none of that was for weed.

I love mapping on openstreetmap.org

Really like most of the hobbies from comments, you guys are interesting!

Mine are (I'm not sure if they are niche but):

Fountain pens. Writing with them feels very nice and smooth and it's a little piece of "retro" even though I don't have time for any other kind of "retro"

Lucid dreaming. It's an exercise of control over your dreams and a chance of doing something you like when you sleep. Or experience something new. There are forums with quests like "go to an art gallery in a dream and explore what your brain can give you as a painting" or "build yourself a dream homebase with all your favorite pieces of dreams from childhood" or "jump into a chalk painting and describe your experience"

I build guitar pedals! I don't design them, but I order the PCBs and solder the components myself. It's significantly cheaper than buying them premade, and how many people can say they made their own pedalboard?

I'm also an amateur Fossil Hunter. The area I live in is filled with fossils from the Ordovincian.

Looking for and archiving recordings of old and modern announcements in commercial and industrial settings. Like mind the gap on trains or there has been a broadcast tower failure in your area or Pan Am boarding call welcome and instructions. these can be on reel to reel or 8 track tape.

I ride electric scooters for fun and plan to learn lockpicking. I'm a sucker for cryptographic puzzles but not really good at it.

you'd be shocked at how easy it is to grow most edible mushrooms. all you need to grow oysters is a syringe full of spores and some uncle bens pre-cooked vacuum sealed rice. If you want to do lion's mane or other more complex growing cycles like that, just add a rubbermade tub half full of vermiculite and coconut coir. You can be in this hobby for like $100 up front and then like $30/batch. And yes you can grow those mushrooms, where legal of course. I haven't tried it but it seems to be no more difficult than the ones I've successfully grown, and the rice trick actually comes from that community (google "uncle ben tek" for more info)

I fly paramotors. Imagine a fan you strap on your back, a paraglider that goes overhead, and you run run run until you're airborne! Never fails to put a smile on my face when times are tough. And maintaining the engine and planning that next flight keeps me occupied when the weather doesn't cooperate.

I just like to experiment with Linux distros. I like to get into a problem and then fix it, even if it is really annoying. After solving a problem, it's satisfying to watch the Program or something like that run like a charm.

Some of mine maybe aren't that niche anymore, but:

• Retro computing: no one needs more than 640k. Maybe no one needs more than 64k. Those old systems were the last time a single programmer could have control over the entire machine at a low level.

• Ham radio: Oftentimes called a dying hobby, but a great foray into electronics in general, and also a pretty nice community (save for a few curmudgeons).

• Analog audio: often thought of as a boutique thing, but really isn't. Lots of old equipment ready to be restored that can give you really unique auditory experiences.

• Plastic modeling: especially if you start from a kit but add things to it, or if you build from scratch, or hell, even if you just build a kit as intended, there is a huge amount of personal expression and creativity.

Is 3D printing still niche? If so, 3D printing, otherwise nothing.

Old Time Radio (OTR) - amazing to learn history by listening to the radio programs of the day

I freeline skate and have recently gotten into surfskating as well. They're good fun and nice leg workouts. Don't ask me to do any tricks though, I say "I prefer to cruise around", but really I'm just too pleb for that stuff.

I like to yoyo. The other site had a "throwers" community that I enjoyed lurking in. I haven't seen one show up here yet.

Where my throwers at?

I've been into designing boardgames and worldbuilding with the intention of running a Tabletop RPG.

For my current boardgame project, it's a Roll-n-Write style game where you travel the map in order to collect random critters.

My worldbuilding project, at the moment, consists of a sort of airship & steampunk world with sci-fi undertones.

Unicycling. It's hard to do, but super fun and great for balance and core strength. Plus, once you learn to ride, you can start getting all different kinds of them. Ones for doing tricks, jumping, off-road riding etc.

I like finding obscure media and curating playlists out of them. Weird old commercials, music videos, tv spots, instructional/training videos, short films and animation, old tv shows.

Twisty puzzles, such as the Rubik's cube. Just to start with the basic Rubik's cube itself, there are a lot of ways to enjoy it. There are competitions for solving in a variety of different ways, from the standard speed solving, one handed, blindfolded, or fewest moves. Then there are tons of different puzzles that you can get, perhaps even hundreds of different ones. They can be different shapes, have different number of layers to turn, or turn in unusual ways. It can be fun and relaxing to get a new puzzle and figure out a solution by yourself.

My niche hobby is self-hosting and running my own home computer lab. It's tons of fun. The only thing I miss about reddit is the community of self-hosters and home labbers.

I’m unsure if this counts as a “hobby”, but I absolutely love the Mass Effect series so much that I enjoy just watching it as much as replaying. I love it so much that I’ve been recording my gameplay and editing it into a sort of Mass Effect “show”.

I could just watch the handful of streamers out there who play it, but few people play as FemShep and I’ve never seen anyone play a Shepard looking anything like mine let alone take the “right” choices and actions, so this Mass Effect “show” gives me a way to watch my Shepard’s story as often as I’d like.

The whole project has evolved into learning how to polish things in Premiere Pro and Photoshop, so I’m self-teaching as I go.

The most niche thing I probably do (badly) is making chocolate. Not like, just tempering chocolate, but putting nibs and milk powder and sugar and cocoa butter in my countertop melanger and letting it work for like 24 hours until it's nice and smooth. I haven't really perfected it at all and my chocolate recipe is currently mediocre, and i need to experiment with better nibs and roasting them myself, but it's an interesting process that I enjoy.

Otherwise uh, IDK I do everything. I love cooking/baking, and most types of art, I'm huge into fabric arts like nuno felting and needle felting, embroidery is one of my absolute favorite things, I'm pretty decent at sewing, I also like to draw and I am really itching to get into sculpey jewelry crafting and maybe miniatures, I've dabbled in wire jewelry (meh at it), I built (with help) a coffee table where the top comes up so you can turn the base on its side to become a dining table, I'm sure there a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting... oh I guess I'm really good at laundry? I can get stains out of almost anything at this point.

I like to make mistakes (yes, on cassette). It's a time to be with my music, think about it, maybe have a beer. I make the cover artwork and then later I can listen to something I made.

Remote control tanks. Nothing brings me more joy than seeing the suspension on the tracks of an RC tank actually react to bumps

I do sport kite flying and kite making, and I love it. It's incredibly small and niche.

The kites are multi-line kites that can be controlled from the ground, and I typically fly to music and perform at kite festivals. I also build my kites myself by sewing together ripstop for the sails, cutting down carbon tubes for the frame, and 3d printing fittings.

It's not super niche, but I've never met anyone outside of the hobby that even knows it exists.

Anyway, I enjoy car audio competitions a lot. One version is SPL (sound pressure level) where the goal is to build a system that can get as loud as possible. Then there's SQ (sound quality) that's more about making the best sounding system you can, which is also fairly artsy (make it look pretty).

There's a lot of people who are assholes about it, they're the kid down the street blaring his music at 10 o clock at night. Every who does it for a hobby are very respectful of other people and recognize that the vast majority of people don't wanna hear your music.

I enjoy it for a few reasons. Firstly, I just love music. Music is a while body experience. It's not just your ears, but your skin reacts to the vibrations as well, and you just aren't gonna get that experience with cheap speakers. The car is a great place to feel music because it's enclosed and you can generally go somewhere to not bother people.

The other part, is that its very hands on and problem solving. You're doing woodworking, electrical design, maybe fiberglass. Lots of different engineering.

Raising ducks. I love it. They're disgusting creatures, but great.

Can’t believe I got all the way to the end and no one has posted about flight simming.

It’s an amazing hobby, with tonnes of gear, software, community and a wealth of knowledge. I’m nowhere in as deep as some, but find an immense pleasure in nerding out about it.

I was never worried about flying for real (as a passenger) but during turbulence I’d sometimes get a bit clammy-handed. Flight simming has completely cured it. There are SO many layers of safety and the more you understand - and in fact the more accident reports you read and see what the follow-up improvements were - the less I get bothered about even heavy turbulence or unsteady landings. Pilots know their stuff.

Collecting & restoring mechanical calculators, slide rules and old electronic calcs. I sucked hard at math in school btw. Today I love it. Weird life, eh?

Idk about niche so much as, not nearly as popular as it used to be. Circle track asphalt racing. My whole family is in on it. My grandpa did it, my dad and my uncle's did it (and are helping us) now my brother's and I are carrying the legacy. Used to be 17 people from our town showing up to the track every weekend. Now there's 2 of us crews that show up.

I don't know if this necessarily counts; but indie wrestling! I wrestle in the indies and the love and passion our people have in our community is absolutely wonderful. Not too many of friends that I had before have actually come to shows, and I would love if they would!

I never took an interest in wrestling at all before I saw my first show, but the brutality and theatrics had me spellbound.