In a communication device and corresponding methods, a hierarchical, reduced power, beam search process includes a hierarchical activation of the radio frequency frontend (RFFE), transceiver, and baseband integrated circuit (BBIC) for a beam searching operations. For example, a first signal metric measurements can be performed to determine signal information. An operating mode can be determined based on the signal information. In a first operating mode, one or more second signal metric measurements can be performed for a subset of beamforming configurations of the wireless communication device to determine beamforming information. In a second operating mode, one or more third signal metric measurements can be performed on the beamforming configurations to determine the beamforming information.