The wireless sensor network has placed its inevitable position in monitoring and surveillance purpose. The remote and unattended condition of wireless sensor network seeks a new energy-efficient algorithm. Enhancing the lifetime of wireless sensor network has become the primary need to prolong the monitoring duration. This paper envisage the increase in lifetime of nodes by properly selecting the cluster head (CH) based on the residual energy state and total number of frames transmitted to the sink. The role of sensor node is modeled as finite state machine and realized as Markov process. The process helps in scheduling the role of the sensor node and in the process of CH selection. Lifetime enhancement is achieved by selecting optimal CH among eligible cluster members (CM). The proposed algorithm outperforms the other algorithms in terms of lifetime by 1.83 times and increase in throughput by 1.07 times when compared to LEACH-C protocol. The results supports that EAR increases the lifetime of the network and serves as the better solution for HOT SPOT and energy hole problem to the network. © 2017, © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.