TFJS + own custom model, TensorCamera silent failure, onReady never fires

Has anyone here had success using TFJS + React Native on NEW projects?

I am trying to use TFJS because react-native-fast-tflite package is not able to load VertexAI models 🤷🏻‍♂️. So I tried following example TFJS + ReactNative repo, however, it is severely outdated. I have installed these versions:

"@tensorflow/tfjs": "^4.22.0",
"@tensorflow/tfjs-backend-cpu": "^4.22.0",
"@tensorflow/tfjs-react-native": "^1.0.0",
"expo-camera": "~15.0.16",
"expo-gl": "~14.0.2",
"expo": "^51.0.0",
"react-native": "0.74.5",

So far, I am 1) having to exclude using React Native Vision Camera as the TensorCamera is specifically looking for expo-camera...ok no biggie. 2) I am running into an issue after I open the camera:

The typeerror has no stacktrace...and it's just a warning. Here is my code:

  const [model, setModel] = useState<LayersModel | null>(null);
  const [isModelReady, setIsModelReady] = useState(false);


const loadModel: LoadModelType = async (setModel, setIsModelReady) => {
  try {
    await ready();
    const modelJson = require('../../assets/tfjs/model.json');
    const modelWeights1 = require('../../assets/tfjs/1of3.bin');
    const modelWeights2 = require('../../assets/tfjs/2of3.bin');
    const modelWeights3 = require('../../assets/tfjs/3of3.bin');

    const bundle = bundleResourceIO(modelJson, [
      modelWeights1,
      modelWeights2,
      modelWeights3,
    ]);
    const modelConfig = await loadGraphModel(bundle);

    setModel(modelConfig);
    setIsModelReady(true);
  } catch (e) {
  console.error((e as Error).message)
  }
};

  useEffect(
    function initTFJS() {
      if (hasPermission) {
        (async () => {
          // const isGPUSupported = await TFGPUManager.enableGPU();
          // setGpuSupported(isGPUSupported);
          console.log('load model');

          await loadModel(setModel, setIsModelReady);
        })();
      }
    },
    [hasPermission]

return isModelReady && <TensorCamera
      autorender
      cameraTextureHeight={textureDims.height}
      cameraTextureWidth={textureDims.width}
      onReady={handleCameraStream} // never fires onReady
      resizeDepth={3}
      resizeHeight={TENSOR_HEIGHT}
      resizeWidth={TENSOR_WIDTH}
      style={{ flex: 1 }}
      useCustomShadersToResize={false}
    />

my model appears to be loaded correctly, and isModelReady is true, so the camera is rendered. However, the onReady={handleCameraStream} callback never seems to fire, so while the camera appears active, something fails.

Any ideas? Is TFJS+reactnative a good idea with modern RN versions?