Sorry I didn’t read the whole thread, but saw some misinformation here, so sorry if someone has already corrected it.
I have a REALID that I got a few years ago. I just renewed my license due to it being expired last week. All that was needed to renew the REALID was my existing ID and filling out a form basically saying nothing has changed. I didn’t have an appointment or anything. Was in and out of the DMV in 30 minutes (in the metro).
When I originally got the REALID, they required multiple forms of identification.