The amount of power and processing capacity needed to process gesture input for a computing device is reduced by splitting the management of sensors, used to detect the input, among different processing components. A relatively high power processor system can monitor the sensors and determine the presence of gestures when the device is in an active state. When the device, or at least the processor system, enters a sleep mode, sensor management is transferred to a microcontroller connected to at least a portion of the sensors, such that the microcontroller can analyze the sensor data to determine the likelihood of a wake action being performed. In response to detecting a wake action, the microcontroller can contact a component such as a power management component to place the processor system in an active state, and enable the processor system to resume management of the sensors.