Alternatively, you can go with some Powershell commands to talk to the CIM service on the host and return information similar to how the Hardware Status tab works in the C# vSphere client. I do this to return back driver version info for my NICs, along with returning back the ILO IP so I can get a trusted serial number for the host (cursed HP servers).
It was rather complicated in Powershell 2 to do it, but new cmdlets in PS3 give you the ability to query this without too much trouble. I don't have my scripts in front of me, but I'll post more when I have some time.
