Methods of reducing power consumption of networked devices are described. When a main processor and associated hardware in a computing device is powered down, a processing element, with lower power consumption than the main processor, performs networking functions on behalf of the main processor. The processing element monitors events and wakes the main processor when defined criteria are satisfied. In an embodiment, these network functions may be to maintain existing network connections and/or establish new network connections and the defined criteria may relate to messages received by the device which are analyzed by the processing element running the application layer code and these criteria may be configurable by a user of the device.