Access accelerator data through a script

I have a custom script that uses gpscon to send location data to my owntracks instance. The script is triggered every 10 minutes by a cron job. This currently eats about 30-50% of my XA2’s battery. To minimize battery usage I would like to poll gps location only if the phone was in fact moved since last time. Is there a way to read out accelerator data (maybe even without waking the device)?