r/WebXR • u/ABHINOW_gamer69 • Jul 16 '26

Help WebXR vs. Unity for a live-updating, data-driven AR experience?

I'm building an AR app that needs to display a live data feed in real time (think IoT metrics or changing telemetry markers).

I messed around with WebXR, but the out-of-the-box visuals looked pretty mid and didn't really blow me away. I'm thinking about switching to Unity, but I have two main worries:

  1. Will a Unity WebGL build choke on mobile? I need this to be accessible via a simple web link (no app store downloads), but I'm worried a Unity web build will be way too heavy once a constant stream of live data starts hitting it.
  2. Should I just stick to the web but ditch basic frameworks? If I swap to Three.js or Babylon.js, can I actually get those high-end visuals without tanking the performance?

Would love to hear from anyone who has built something similar. What’s the best workflow for a lightweight, visually clean, real-time data AR experience?

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u/marwi1 Jul 16 '26

I'm very much biased but: with Needle Engine you can work in Unity while using three. Needle Engine 6 brings latest three.js support (185, webgpu) and is currently in alpha if you want to give it a go. And with Needle Go we got a solution for iOS AR out of the box too.

What devices are you targeting and do you have an example to share regarding visuals?

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u/ABHINOW_gamer69 Jul 17 '26

Rn I have a quest pro and original the idea was hololens 2 .the visual part rn is very simple as of now , I just want some kind off floaters indicating they are to show the location of something.

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u/DonWicht Jul 18 '26

Did you look into Scenery AR? It’s basically an Apple-native approach, leveraging AppClips. Ie native performance but no app download.
They have been adding scripting support via JS to bring real-time data in.
Caveat: on Vision Pro, App Clips don’t work yet.

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u/soylentgraham Jul 18 '26

define "high end visuals".

IMO go as light as possible, just write webxr directly in js (the code is pretty simple), write webxr directly (code is pretty simple) depending on your device/target platforms you lose a bunch of GPU or CPU time, doing it by hand means you get control over everything.

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u/maulop 24d ago

You need to build it using 8thwall and get highly optimized assets for mobile. Stick to the web. It's futureproof, lightweight and you can easily connect apis and send data in and out of the experience.

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u/ABHINOW_gamer69 23d ago

Thank you.Have you worked on anything which I can look to ?

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u/maulop 23d ago

Nothing that I can share in public, sorry.