That isn’t my experience. I have an ErgoDox EZ, and while it’s married to QWERTY, I’ve customized everything else and have 4 layers I regularly use. I also use my MacBook’s keyboard when not at my desk and I never have a problem context switching. I also recently got a windows laptop and put pop_os on it, and after a few days was able to context switch between OSes with different keyboard and different shortcuts without a problem. It takes time, and maybe diligent practice, and maybe my brain is a little weird, but I suspect most people can do this if they’re diligent.

What are your 4 layers? I only really live in 2

QWERTY, keyboard shortcuts for window management via Rectangle, numbers and symbols, mouse control. Media keys are on one of those layers but that knowledge resides in my fingers not my head, and I’m not at my keyboard.

I want to try a 40-key board so I’m trying to make more use of the layers.

There's already a bunch of other posts disputing this claim (and I want to be clear that I agree with the disputations :) ), but the 2 cents I want to throw in are:

Having built an ErgoDox (from the online plans) I regularly use it and have good muscle memory for it. When I switch to a regular keyboard my muscle memory for that other keyboard kicks in and I'm able to use that one fine.

It's actually harder to switch from using my ErgoDox on Windows to the same ErgoDox on Mac because I use the bottom-left key for control on Windows and the bottom-right key for Command on Mac (both on the left-hand-side of the keyboard).

Even that's not too bad, but there is a noticeable 'switch over' time - maybe 5-10 minutes or so.

This simply isn't true; it's funny how often this criticism pops up in response to unorthodox layouts. Learning a different layout has, in my experience, and in that of most folks I've talked to that have done it, been more like learning to do everyday tasks with your non-dominant hand than some irreversible magical transformation that completely robs you of that ability to use a "normal" keyboard.

I use a split kinesis in qwerty and have no problem moving between keyboards.

I had a friend who went full dvorak and had a hell of a time just changing an airline ticket on my machine, though. A big chunk of this article is about relearning typing for new key layouts...

I dislike using other keyboards (certainly non-mechanical ones), but have no problems doing so. I still use laptop keyboards (macbook pro, Dell XPS) when I'm not at home (rare in current situation) or if I want to use it away from my desk (not that often, but sometimes).

I do have to look at the keys if I'm not using Colemak though.

I've been using kinesis advantage 2 for about 8 years.. I can still use random keyboards just fine!

The advantage 2 was only released in 2016. I myself have the advantage (1) since about 8 years. Sorry for being pedantic here, but that's why that statement tripped me up.

Plenty people who use ergonomic keyboards also use a laptop keyboard directly all the time and there's few complaints about that. Are you talking from experience?

I bounce around between keyboards a lot, because I work on industrial machinery with dedicated computers. I use a standard, flat, 105-key keyboard (with quiet tactile mechanical switches) as my daily driver. I also run 2 laptops, a personal Thinkpad and a company Latitude, usually plugged into a dock with the aforementioned keyboard (I have 3, one on my cart in the shop, one in my home office, and one in my work office).

It takes me half an hour or so to adjust every time I switch machines. The laptop to mechanical isn't so bad, but in particular, the Dell and Lenovo keyboards have different orders of the Function and Control keys, and I constantly enter the wrong key combos if I'm coming from the other laptop. The transition from mechanical keyboard to the rubber ones on machines also leaves me using either too little force to register a key, or slamming my fingertips into the steel backplate at the bottom of travel. And the Fanuc CNCs are high-dollar, highly functional machines, but their keyboards - ugh! Mushy, wobbly, weird row/column spacing and alignment, weird layout... fortunately you can plug in a USB keyboard if you carry one with you, but otherwise I have to slow down to a hunt-and-peck crawl or I make constant typos in an environment where typos can be really expensive.

I do acknowledge that switching from a full size keyboard to a laptop, or from a laptop to a phone keyboard can be pretty smooth. And that the short time adjusting can easily be worth the effort, especially if you're going to be working on a given machine for a few hours. But if they are physically similar and functionally remapped then I don't think I could do it.

I have the same problem, with laptop keyboards/etc. I just have a stock of the MS natural keyboards and I sprinkled them everywhere i'm using a computer for anything that isn't typing out a quick email/whatever.

So drop the laptop on the doc, use a natural keyboard. Drop it on the desk at home, plug in a keyboard, etc.

I use a Kinesis and Dvorak. I have no trouble at all switching between the Kinesis and a macbook keyboard (which is also set to Dvorak) but I'd definately be slow to type English (back to normal person typing speed), and writong code in vim would be a nightmare if I was forced to use a random machine and not able to switch the layout.

Luckily, you can switch easily to Dvorak on most systems for the last couple of decades. Something that's less true once you start inventing your own layouts (though I think Colemak, Neo and Workman are decently suppprted).

Also, people who learned to touch type QWERTY suggest you can swap back even after learning a new layout. I never learned qwerty that well but return to standard nerd level of familiarity.