The Evolution of IRL Streaming: From Periscope to LiveU Solo PRO & Unlimited IRL Backpacks
Taylor Webb, CEO of UnlimitedIRL
Live video has come a long way since Periscope.
Apps like Periscope, Meerkat, and later native tools on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok moved live off the desk and into the world. Now, anyone can pick up a phone and bring viewers along in real time: walking through a city, attending events, or just sharing everyday life with chat as a constant companion.
What mattered wasn’t polish; it was presence. Early IRL streams were unstable, and often low resolution – but they created something new: a sense of shared experience that pre-recorded video could not match. Viewers weren’t just watching content; they were participating in a moment as it unfolded.
That shift is what opened the door for “IRL” as its own medium. Creators began to build entire channels around being live: building routines with their communities, traveling the world, and streaming around town. The tech was primitive compared to today’s standards, but the core dynamic – creator + chat (and the shared experience) – was already in place.
From there, the question became less “Will people watch this?” and more “How do we make this reliable, repeatable, and sustainable as a serious format?” That is the gap that LiveU and UnlimitedIRL stepped into: taking the raw energy of early mobile live and giving it the infrastructure it needed to grow up.
Empowering Creators: The Gear and Innovation Behind IRL Streaming
UnlimitedIRL is a key plaster in the IRL space, allowing creators to go live anywhere with professional-grade reliability and cinematic quality. With a wearable IRL backpack, the camera of their choice, batteries, cables, and a LiveU encoder at the core, creators could transform a simple live broadcast into a full-scale production. That freed them to focus on storytelling and audience engagement – not the tech behind the scenes.
LiveU and UnlimitedIRL showed off IRL streaming solutions at TwitchCon 2025
But IRL creators are obsessed with details: How can I make my stream even better? How far can I push the limits of mobile production?
“You’ve got people using their cell phones all the way up to real cinema cameras – FX3s, FX6s,” said Taylor Webb, CEO of UnlimitedIRL. “It really comes down to the content style the creator wants to achieve and what their audience expects.”
As audiences have grown, so have their expectations. Viewers now demand high-quality, uninterrupted streams – no dropouts, no muffled audio. The gap between pre-recorded video and live content continues to close, and the creators leading the space are running near-broadcast-level setups.
And that’s reflected more and more in the sort of big content creators that we see now, who are focused on having camera crews follow them around “live reality shows.”
IRL went from “people sharing” to full-fledged business ventures with money being poured into content development – from the gear to the locales.
“There are so many places that haven’t been traveled to and streamed before. But we’re seeing, streaming is taking on these larger productions and more complex productions,” said Joel Wilcox, UnlimitedIRL’s co-founder and fellow IRL streamer known as Xocliw.
“We’ve had two major creators stream continuously for 30 days straight,” added Wilcox. “Gone are the days of 100 viewers – today’s top IRL streams draw 20,000+ live viewers and real brand dollars. But it takes serious work and commitment.”
The Business of IRL Streaming: How Creators Turn Live Content into Revenue
Money is flowing in from ‘subs’ and deals with brands. In fact, non-gaming content in live streaming grew 28% year over year in Q2 2025, outpacing gaming as creators bring their shows into real-world settings (Stream Hatchet, Q2 2025 Live Streaming Trends Report). UnlimitedIRL has supported tech companies, gaming companies, car brands and other consumer favorites to create unique experiences for digital media using the company’s IRL Backpack to tell the story.
LiveU Solo PRO is at the heart of many of these creator-led productions, enabling creators to double down on their content quality. When other streaming solutions priced people out and didn’t offer the same level of quality, LiveU Solo disrupted the IRL market.
Powered by cellular bonding technology, LiveU Solo PRO combines multiple 4G and 5G connections – from different carriers – into one ultra-stable stream. This ensures uninterrupted, high-bitrate video even in congested or remote environments where a single network would fail. By intelligently balancing bandwidth across all available signals, LiveU gives creators the same reliability trusted by major broadcasters, now scaled for mobile IRL productions.
The next evolution of IRL is already taking shape,” said Webb. “We’re seeing the lines blur between traditional broadcast and creator-driven live content – and the technology is catching up fast.
“Looking ahead, we’re going to see some big shifts in IRL,” he predicted. “Wireless cameras will free creators from cables and backpacks. Multistreaming will become standard, letting them reach audiences across every platform at once. The biggest streamers will start launching their own networks on OTT platforms like Amazon Fire TV and Roku – and even traditional broadcasters will evolve their storytelling to connect with the IRL generation.”
But no matter how much the tools evolve, one thing never changes: the community. The chat, the subs, the fans who stick around eight hours into a stream – they’re the heartbeat of IRL. That connection is what keeps creators innovating, growing, and redefining what live can be.
Ready to upgrade your IRL setup? Learn how LiveU Solo PRO powers pro-grade mobile streaming
About LiveU
LiveU is the leader in live IP-video streaming and remote production solutions, powering global broadcasters, production companies, and content creators with high-quality, reliable live video. Its portable and cloud-based IP solutions enable live transmission, distribution, and production from anywhere. LiveU’s proprietary LiveU Reliable Transport (LRT™) protocol is the industry standard for low-latency, high-resilience live video delivery over cellular and IP networks. Learn more at www.liveu.tv
About UnlimitedIRL
UnlimitedIRL is a California-based live production and streaming technology company pioneering the IRL (In Real Life) creator space. Founded in 2018, UnlimitedIRL develops mobile streaming solutions such as the IRL Backpack, a turnkey LiveU-powered system that enables creators and brands to broadcast high-quality, stable video from anywhere in the world. The company supports leading creators, events, and enterprises across the live entertainment and digital media industries, helping to define the future of mobile content creation. Learn more at www.unlimitedirl.com