Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. A user equipment (UE) may measure a power value for each beam from one or more cells and calculate an average beam power for each cell. The UE may transmit these calculated averages to a base station in a report, and the base station may select a cell for communications based on the measurement report. The UE may also include a number indicating how many beams are used when calculating an average beam power, a ratio between a maximum and minimum beam power for each cell, two average beam powers based on two defined thresholds, or a combination of these measurements, in the transmitted report. The UE may add a bias to the average beam power for a particular cell to indicate a preference for that cell over the other candidate cells.