I'm not a specialist but I can tell you that almost every Engineering Organization I ever met who designed "White Goods" like A.C., Water Heater, Washer, Dryer etc. got input from their Sales/Marketing people and they usually make sure to keep older technology incompatible with newer tech unless of course they have an in house customer service unit where they will do less work for more margin thus creating a larger income stream for themselves. I'm guessing you have built in incompatibility.
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