A peripheral device capable of being worn, carried by a user, or used in an in-vehicle computer system operates in conjunction with an application to acquire, store, and present data relevant to a user's health, physical activity, environment, air quality, or other parameters of interest. For power efficient operation and enhanced performance, control parameters of the peripheral device such as duty cycle, sampling rate, and sleep state may be wirelessly and automatically controlled by the mobile device. Furthermore, the mobile application can provide a wireless energy signal to the peripheral device to recharge the battery of the peripheral device. The control parameters may be automatically controlled by the mobile application dependent on the user's location, activity, mode of transportation or other parameters without intervention from a user.