I have several Tapo C210 cameras, and I regularly save recordings of my children from them. While the audio quality on the C210 is not perfect (the noise floor is quite noticeable) I have always been able to perform any necessary sound editing afterwards to make the audio more intelligible and suitable for the moments we have captured, as the audio is as honest and unprocessed as it can be. A few weeks ago, we bought two additional Tapo C225 cameras with the expectation that both the image quality and the audio quality would be improved.
 

I agree that the image quality is better. However, I am unfortunately not seeing the same improvement with the audio.

When someone speaks directly in front of the C225, the audio can sound clearer and more crisp than on the C210. However, as soon as the volume of speech or children’s sounds decreases, the camera’s audio processing becomes very noticeable. It sounds as if an aggressive noise gate or noise suppression algorithm is being applied. The result is that quieter sounds often become robotic or metallic, and in many cases soft voices, small noises, and subtle moments are removed entirely.
 

This is very frustrating, because the recordings are mostly used to preserve family moments. Small laughs, quiet words, and background sounds are often exactly the things we want to keep. With the C210, the audio may have more background noise, but at least the original sound is preserved and can be edited afterwards. With the C225, it feels like the audio is being heavily processed at the source, before it is either streamed live and/or saved to the SD card. As a result, the missing quiet sounds are already gone by the time I access the recording, making them impossible to recover afterwards.
 

I suspect that the effective signal-to-noise ratio of the C225 microphone may be quite low, as can perhaps be expected with small entry-level consumer Wi-Fi cameras. However, I would not have expected the noise cancellation, noise suppression, or noise gate to be tuned so aggressively in order to mask the device’s own self-noise. The unintended side effect is that it also suppresses soft or low-level audio, which is precisely the kind of audio I most want to preserve.

I have read through several threads while trying to find a solution, and I have seen other users report similar issues with the C225. In some cases, it appears that the issue was resolved by receiving custom firmware with the noise cancellation, noise suppression, or noise gate disabled.

I would very much appreciate the same solution, as we were very satisfied with our Tapo camera setup at home prior to experiencing this.

I have already forwarded my my camera's MAC address to @Solla-topee via private message.