Better way to monitor thin AP

I have seen a lot of older posts on this but wanted to get the current status...  We have a number of Cisco WLCs with Thin APs attached.  I would like to be able to view the APs as nodes similar to a standalone AP or switch.  Currently the only way to show that an AP is down is via alerts.  If an AP is down is disappears from the AP listing as well. 

I know I can add the Thin APs as nodes and use ICMP to poll but are there any other options or things in development?

Thanks