My partner and I are getting eloped in Vegas later this week, so we were in a time crunch for…read morewedding bands. Luckily, we found this amazing gem of a store in Oak Park. Jose greeted us immediately and helped us find the perfect ring for my fiancée. I described what I wanted for myself, and he said he would be able to customize one of the available bands to what I had in mind. One hour later, I had exactly what I was looking for. He is a fantastic jeweler! The experience was completely relaxed, and he did not try to upsell us. I was pretty nervous about cost since this is all very last-minute, but we actually came out under budget. We are extremely happy with the rings and will confidently recommend EcoKarat and Jose to our friends and family.

These reviews can be difficult, especially when they're critical. My impression is that EcoKarat is…read moreprimarily a jeweler, and I don't know anything about that part of his business. This review is only about watch repair. Further, different people have different ideas about what constitutes watch repair. Personally, I don't consider replacing a watch strap or bracelet, or replacing a battery on a quartz watch to be "repair". Many of the reviews here seem to be about that type of work, but that's not what this is. My watch was losing a minute a day, and I brought it in hoping the cause could be identified and corrected. EcoKarat does not do that kind of work. They send it to someone else to do the work off site. That's not uncommon, but usually a shop will tell you that's what's happening *before* they take on the watch. I didn't find that out until a couple of days later when I called to ask about the status of the work. Now, I could probably stop there. From a certain way of thinking, this isn't really a review of EcoKarat, but a review of the shop he sent the watch to. But it was EcoKarat that told me they would do the work. And it was EcoKarat that told me they needed to hold onto the watch for a few more days to make sure it was "running perfectly". His words, "perfectly". And it was also EcoKarat that told me the watch was ready. Unfortunately, when I picked it up and brought the watch home is was no longer 60 seconds slow, but about 50 seconds fast. The TLDR at this point is as far as functionality goes, for several reasons I wouldn't recommend taking your watch there. But if you're looking for a little more detail, or maybe you've bought a mechanical watch and you're wondering how to tell who to trust, let's go over some of the red flags I should have noticed while this was going on. 1. Ask if the work is done in house. If they send it to a 3rd party, you're probably paying extra for the process (the middleman). What's more, if anything unexpected comes up, they only know what the 3rd party told them. They won't be able to answer any questions the way the person who did the actual work could. You're also usually taking on a day each way sending the watch to the 3rd party. 2. Magnets are bad for mechanical watches, and we live in a world of magnets. Your computer, phone, microwave, even parts of your car...lots of magnets! If your watch is close to a magnet frequently or for extended periods of time, it can become magnetized and run slow or fast, or even fast one minute and slow the next. Luckily, demagnetizing a watch is simple and easy if you have a demagnetizer. The process takes about 5 minutes, so if someone tells you they need a few days, something's not right. Either the problem is not magnetization, in which case you want to start asking how much the work is going to cost, or someone in the process doesn't know what they're doing. 3. Mechanical watches have a "movement" which is basically the motor of the watch, and it winds from the movement of your arm. Mid-level watches ($1,000-$3,000) promise somewhere between +/- 5 to 15 seconds per day for their movement. Nothing you can wear on your wrist keeps perfect time. Even quartz watches lose or gain a little time. So, if someone tells you your watch is running perfectly, you might want to ask them to explain what "perfectly" means. On the other hand, if someone tells you your watch is performing within its capabilities, but it's well outside the stated accuracy range of the movement, you might want to take your business somewhere else. 4. Checking how a watch is running is typically done with something called a time grapher. You clamp the watch down on a sensor pad and it "listens" to the watch like a stethoscope listens to your heart. Almost immediately a panel tells you how fast or slow the watch is running, the "rate", the "amplitude" (degrees of rotation of the balance wheel), and something called the "Beat Error", which is often described as the difference between the "tick" and the "tock". Getting a reading is almost instant, and time graphs aren't expensive. Watch repairers have them so they aren't just letting the watch go ticking away and comparing it every few hours to another timekeeper like the one on your phone. That takes a lot of time. So, if someone is telling you they need more time to make sure the watch is functioning right, either they are very busy, or possibly they just don't have the tools you'd expect them to have. To be fair, it could be that the watch repairer is "Adjusting" your watch. That can take some time, and you can Google that to understand what a tedious process it is. But even so, they should be explaining that to you if you just thought it was getting demagnetized, and that's definitely not what happened with my watch. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Automatic watches can be fun, but they need some love. Hopefully this can help you identify people you can trust.