MongoDB Atlas Device Sync (Realm) with expo in 2025

Question

I’m migrating my existing react-native project into Expo. I am using Realm 11 and @realm/react 0.4.2. It will compile, but gives me a runtime error: ‘Missing Realm Constructor, Did you run pod-install?’. We have installed our dependencies using expo prebuild and later also by hand in our iOS directory.

I know realm/device sync is deprecated, and we are moving away from it, but it would be really helpful for my project to be able to migrate our existing realm setup into our new expo-managed app for some time.

The started kit that MongoDB provides seems dated and does not include any documentation.

My question: Does anyone have recent experience in bringing Realm into expo projects, and/or can anyone help me with fixing this error?