Using XBEE in parallel to another serial chip

Hello,
I want to share the UART lines of a processor between an XBEE and an USB-UART (FTDI), so my processor interacts either with the XBEE or with the USB-UART. So not to mess up transmission data, I wanted to disable/reset/sleep the according unused device. This is possible for the FTDI device, if I put a reset on the USB-UART, it will tristate its outputs.

Is there a similar feature on the XBEE device or must I externally add a switch?

Thanks

Wolfgang

A host can command the XBee to disable any of its I/O lines including the serial ones, so as far as the chip’s concerned you can do this. But if the common part of the serial connection is to run at anything other than the XBee’s 3.3V level, you’ll be using level shifters - so I suppose then it would depend on being able to open-circuit those somehow.