Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) Communications technology enables the sensor nodes to observe, identify, understand and respond to changes in surrounding environment. Many of the communication devices for WSN have power constraints, due to their small size and the requirement to operate off small batteries for long periods of time. Thus energy efficiency is an important design criterion. Since energy consumption in the transceiver front ends is dominant, the focus is on reducing the energy consumption on the system level. In this research article the energy model for the alternating quadrature differential binary phase shift keying (AQ-DBPSK) modulation-based transceiver is developed and compared with the energy models for various transceiver architectures, popularly used in WSN nodes. Its suitability for energy efficient operations in WSN applications is investigated in this research article. Through theoretical analysis and simulated results, we discuss how to select the energy efficient transceiver front end for various WSN application scenarios.