Well, the fridge needs to be opened, closed, has inner compartments, you need to be able to regulate the temperature, possibly to let the user know the fridge is running/which temperature is inside... all this happens in the kitchen, possibly with dirty hands, or with wet hands, or while you're holdin ga handful of things... that's all UX-related aspects.

The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman, had a nice example of how even the wheels for regulating the temperature can be very confusing (and indeed, in basic fridges you don't regulate the temperature, you set a number on the scrollwheel e.g. between 1-7. But is 7 a higher temperature or higher cooling power?).

- When you open a door, its hinges don't provide nearly enough friction so it starts closing immediately, instead of being able to be propped open (like when you're cooking and holding other stuff so need time to take stuff out)

- The drawers are all basically impossible to use without fully opening the door, but (see above) fully opening the door makes it swing back super hard as well so now you're fighting two different parts of your fridge at once

- It's huge but somehow the space inside the fridge is super small compared to comparable fridges. Probably a shelf thing.

- Some of the design leads to little cracks that are hard to clean up without pinching yourself with the door.

It's basically door-related stuff but it's also stuff I don't experience with my ... $200? Fridge from Hitachi. I feel like my own fridge is fine. It's a fridge. Nothing to write home about. It would probably get a wirecutter recommendation if they did "small-ish fridges for 1-2 people"

One important user interaction for a fridge is that when the door is open you grasp the handle and push toward to the body of the fridge, three things happen:

1) The door glides smoothly on its hinge toward the body.

2) The door connects with the body and provides haptic feedback that it is closed

3) The door remains closed.

The last one is the most important because user will likely walk away and stop monitoring the state of the fridge. If it changes to an open-state, it could remain open and thereby let the food inside spoil.

"Mine just has a scroll wheel which goes from cool to cold."

It not having a touch screen doesn't mean there is no UX.

American fridges have falcon wing doors with door knobs instead of handles

The handle, the different compartments, the drawers, …. That’s all part of the UX.

Of course there needs to be a clock that you then need to switch between daylight savings and normal time.