Techniques described herein are directed to, among other things, wireless payment readers configured to transition between multiple different power states. In some instances, these power states include one or more relatively low-power states such that an overall battery life of the wireless payment readers are lengthened. Further, in some instances, a point-of-sale (POS) application operating on a POS device that wirelessly couples to an example wireless payment reader may cause the wireless payment reader to transition from one state to another, such as from a first, lower-power state to a second, higher-power state in response to the POS application determining that a payment is to be processed using the wireless payment reader.