The task of routing data from a source to the sink is a critical issue in ad hoc and wireless sensor networks. In this paper, the use of fuzzy logic to perform role assignment during route establishment and maintenance is proposed. An incremental approach is presented and compared with similar existing routing protocols. Efficient routing approaches provide network load balance to extend network lifetime, efficiency improvements, and data loss avoidance. Experiments show promising results for our proposals and its suitability for operating with dense networks, obtaining quick route creation as well as energy efficiency. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.