Why TP-Link Chinese-only routers are poorly supported?

China is a big market for TP-Link, with many popular models. The market of nearby countries are often flooded with used routers whose cost ranges from as low as 4 and up to 15 USD:

  • TL-WR842N
  • TL-WR885N
  • TL-WR2041N
  • TL-WDR3320
  • TL-WDR5600
  • TL-WDR6300
  • TL-WDR6500
  • TL-WDR7400
  • And so on...

Unfortunately, their firmware is plagued with Chinese text, which reduces their usability -- it is when OpenWRT comes as a savior. I am a bit surprise to discover that OpenWRT support for these routers is something close to zero. I know that Chinese version of an entry-level model usually has its hardware stripped, such as the 841N or 842N. However, there are still a lot of mid-range to high-end models. Still none of them can be found in the TOH. What is the main reason for that?

I would imagine that, being Chinese only, the developers don't have access to them, and no even technical data available.

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Because most of developers live outside China, they do not have in hand the china domestic router versions.


Add to the above that TP-Link hasn't been the best in terms of source-license compliance and that they tend to ship completely different hardware under the same "model number" with different version numbers and in different markets makes it even more challenging without a device in hand to work with.